


Next Big Thing

by earlgreytea68



Series: The One Where They're Stars on HGTV [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: HGTV, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 231
Words: 283,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is certain that they will excel at being celebrity judges. </p><p>Arthur is not so sure. </p><p>But then, that's usually how their relationship goes.</p><p>***THIS STORY IS FINISHED, AO3 JUST REFUSES TO MARK IT AS SUCH***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Next Big Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5970249) by [cheps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheps/pseuds/cheps)



> Various weather-related confusions with travel plans this weekend, so, to escape, I started this. I have no other excuse.

“I think we should do it,” says Eames. His voice is muffled because he’s pulling his shirt over his head but Arthur can still understand what he’s saying. 

Arthur has been sitting up in their bed reading, fleeing from an interminable conversation Eames had been having via Skype with a client whereby Eames would hold up a piece of fabric and the client would say something inane and Eames would say something cajoling back to her and on and on. Now he looks up at Eames over the top of his glasses and says, “See, I want to hope that you’re referring to some exciting new sex thing but I don’t think you are.” 

“Oh, darling, you know I’m always up for an exciting new sex thing,” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows at him in one of those ridiculous leers he engages in with Arthur. Because leering is not something Arthur really thought people did until he met Eames and Eames leers at Arthur almost constantly. Arthur claims to find it absurd. 

Eames sprawls out on the bed next to Arthur, on top of the covers, only half-undressed, because that’s just how haphazard Eames is. “But no,” he continues. “Not what I was referring to. Unless you want to suggest an exciting new sex thing.” 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur, putting the book inside, because now they have to have A Conversation, and Arthur had been hoping to avoid that. Arthur is very, very good at avoidance. Eames, meanwhile, is terrible at it. 

“Mmm,” says Eames, nuzzling his way along Arthur’s shoulder, underneath the collar of his t-shirt. “Leave the glasses on, they’re hot.” 

“Last time I left the glasses on, you broke them,” Arthur points out, taking them off. 

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” says Eames petulantly, nibbling at Arthur’s neck. 

“Well, until you can control your flailings during sex, no glasses,” says Arthur, as stern as he can be when Eames is biting at his jaw. 

“I have to earn the glasses, is that it?” clarifies Eames, draping himself half on top of Arthur, a leg in between his. 

“Yes,” says Arthur, tangling his hand in Eames’s hair. 

“What will that entail?” 

“Some exciting new sex thing,” says Arthur. 

“Excellent,” says Eames, and lifts his head up. “Why don’t you want to do it?” 

“This isn’t earning you the glasses,” Arthur informs him. 

“Darling, I’m going to talk you into the glasses, and we both know it, so let’s stop even pretending that’s up for discussion. Now why don’t you want to do it?”

Arthur resists the urge to squirm around a little bit with how _annoying_ Eames is. Instead he turns the question back onto Eames. “Why do you want to?”

Eames’s face brightens immediately. Arthur thinks he must have looked a lot like this on Christmas morning as a boy. Well, frankly, he still looks a lot like this on Christmas morning as an adult. He looks a lot like this a lot of the time, Arthur has to admit. Eames has this ability to be childishly delighted by the tiniest things. Like every time Arthur smiles at him. It’s disconcerting. 

“I think it’ll be fun,” says Eames enthusiastically, pushing himself up a little. 

Arthur adjusts himself so Eames’s weight isn’t pinning him uncomfortably and says, “Fun? Judging a bunch of amateurs in a reality television show to win Best New Designer? You think that would be fun?” 

“Yes,” says Eames. “It doesn’t sound like fun to you?” 

No, Arthur just thinks it sounds like more work. So he just looks at Eames. 

Eames rolls off him a bit, just enough so that he can stretch out next to him and prop himself up on his elbow and say knowledgeably, “You’ve been bored.” 

“How can I be bored?” says Arthur, deadpan. “What with all the new exciting sex things we do?” 

Eames smiles at him. “Bored at work,” he clarifies. “You’re tired of it.” 

Arthur is silent for a second, because he hasn’t brought this up, because Eames loves work, loves the show, and it’s made Eames a superstar, and Arthur doesn’t want to seem like he resents it or anything like that, because he doesn’t. The show also, after all, gave him Eames in the first place. But still. “Don’t you get tired of the same pattern over and over and over?” 

Eames opens his mouth to reply. 

Arthur cuts him off. “No, never mind, I know you don’t. It’s fine. It’s nothing. I’m a little bored, but everybody gets bored at work sometimes. And I’m never bored when I’m with you, so there’s that.”

“It’s different for me,” Eames says. “Every house is a new design, every house is something different. I think every house hunt is the same for you.” 

If Arthur hears _open floorplan, granite countertops_ one more time, he might vomit. “Yes,” he says. “A little bit. But at the end you’ve always pulled off some amazing magic trick that I get to see, so I always have something to look forward to.” He smiles gamely, hoping he is using his dimples liberally. 

Eames looks at him very seriously, which is the opposite effect the dimples are supposed to have. “When they asked us about doing this competition show thing, I thought it’s be a good excuse for us to take a break, do something different.” 

Arthur looks up at the ceiling. Eames is clever. Always much cleverer than he lets on. And he doesn’t miss a trick. Especially not when it comes to Arthur. He knows Arthur is bored and restless. And he knows Arthur will never leave the show until Eames is bored and restless, too. Maybe this ridiculous celebrity-judging gig is a good compromise. Something different, something new for both of them. 

Arthur looks back at Eames and says hesitantly, “I don’t know, though. I mean, what do I know about designing? They really just want you.” 

“You know a lot about designing,” Eames says. “You helped me design this place, didn’t you?” 

“I said _I don’t like puce_ ,” says Arthur. 

“Anyone who wears the clothes you wear cannot say they don’t have taste. You’ve got beautiful, perfect, impeccable taste. Look who you’re shagging, after all.” Eames leans forward and kisses him. 

“Hmph,” says Arthur into his mouth. “I think you’re biased.” 

“Terribly,” Eames murmurs against him. “Undoubtedly. We’re a package deal.” 

“We don’t have to be,” says Arthur uncertainly. 

Eames pulls back a little bit, looking quizzical and slightly hurt. “Don’t you want to be?” 

Arthur brushes his hair off his forehead and trails his fingers down across Eames’s cheek, rubbing against his stubble. He’s so used to Eames—no, screw that, he’s so _in love with_ Eames—he can’t imagine doing anything with anyone else. And he can’t imagine Eames bantering with anyone else. Actually, he can’t stand the idea. 

So he says honestly, “Terribly. Undoubtedly.” 

Eames beams again. Kid on Christmas morning again. And he says, “We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I just thought it’d be fun. But it’s not a big thing.” 

What the hell, thinks Arthur. Maybe he should give something new a try. How bad could it be? “Okay,” he says. “You might be right. We should do it.” 

“You’re sure?” says Eames. “We don’t have to make a decision tonight. We can—”

“No, judging is right up my alley, as you know. I don’t know why I was hesitating. I _love_ judging people.” 

This makes Eames laugh with delight, as Arthur had intended. “It’s true. I can’t wait to see the Internet go mad over the cutting little remarks you’re going to make.” 

“If you tell any of the contestants they’re the best, though, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” Arthur warns him, because he needs Eames to know that’s a _him_ thing, like the _darling_ and the eyebrow-waggling leers and the banter. There is a list of Eames things that Arthur likes to imagine belong to him exclusively. 

And Eames knows this. “That one’s all yours, darling,” he assures him, and kisses him again. “Now about the glasses.”


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur is ridiculously, absurdly, over-the-top, to-the-extreme nervous. He shouldn’t be. He can’t believe that he is. He’s on television all the time. His _entire relationship_ unfolded on film in front of millions of viewers. He shouldn’t be nervous. 

But the truth is he isn’t a designer. Eames is so easy to believe when it’s just the two of them, at home, wrapped up in their own little world. Arthur is a completely different person then. Arthur is embarrassingly self-assured and confident when he’s home because it’s easy to feel that way when Eames beams at you so constantly like the sun rises and sets at your command and aren’t you _brilliant_ to have figured out how to control the workings of the entire _solar system_. Eames is fucking magic when it comes to making you think you can do things you can’t do. 

Arthur supposes he should be pleased that Eames doesn’t turn this power to things like _yes, sure, darling, I think you could rob a bank_ , or _darling, don’t you think if you jumped out of a plane, you would grow wings and fly?_ , or _absolutely, darling, you can pull off culottes, yes_. But Arthur, feeling a little lost on a set of people who are all new to him, is not all too pleased with Eames at the moment. 

Because where the fuck _is_ Eames? Who the fuck knows? How long could it possibly take to choose an appalling shirt to wear? Arthur shoots his cuffs and reminds himself that he is wearing a drop-dead gorgeous suit that makes him look like a million bucks and it doesn’t matter that he knows fuck-all about design, he looks really good and that’s ninety percent of the game for Arthur. Or at least for Arthur’s psyche. 

“Arthur,” says a not-Eames voice. And a not-Cobb voice and a not-Yusuf voice because Arthur doesn’t know a single fucking person on this set and that is not entirely Eames’s fault except for how Arthur has decided that yes, it is. 

“Hi,” says Arthur to the not-Eames person who inexplicably knows his name. The guy’s a little taller than Arthur, well-dressed in a style that would be too much except that he’s so knowing about the too-much-ness that it’s suiting him. He’s wearing a fedora and actually pulling it off and Arthur is envious of that ability. Arthur is also envious of his tie, which is just this shade of ridiculous and also being admirably pulled off by this guy. 

“I’m Alec Hart,” the guy says, “and I’m a huge fan.” He offers his hand. 

Arthur shakes it and says, “Thanks,” and hopes he doesn’t sound too awkward. 

“This whole celebrity judge thing was a little last-minute for me and I was hoping the rest of the panel wasn’t going to be complete imbeciles.” Alec smiles at him as if he is quite confident that Arthur isn’t an imbecile. “I’ve got to say, your show is great, but I didn’t realize you had a design background, too.” 

Arthur grits his teeth a little. “I don’t.” 

Alec looks confused. “Oh. Well. I guess you’re the celebrity part of ‘celebrity judge’!” Alec laughs as if he thinks he’s hilarious. 

Arthur doesn’t think he’s hilarious. 

Mal comes running over and says, in her lilting French accent, “Oh, good, you two have met.” 

“I am a big fan of Arthur’s here,” says Alec jovially, and slaps Arthur on the back. 

Arthur says, “We’re practically BFFs.” 

Alec does that thing again where he laughs way more than is called for by the remark. “Ah, now I see why you asked him along, Mal! We should tweet a picture of ourselves, Artie, caption it ‘BFFs.’ Can I call you ‘Artie’?”

“No, and also no,” says Arthur. 

Alec laughs and laughs again. 

Arthur hopes that Eames has gotten stuck in an elevator somewhere, because that is the only thing that would justify—

“Eames!” exclaims Mal. “There you are, dear heart!” Mal, of course, has developed an instant attachment to Eames. People generally do. 

Eames is rushing toward them, fiddling with a cuff and saying, “Yes, I know, I’m late, I’m sorry, I can’t get this cufflink, darling, could you—” He sticks his wrist out toward Arthur and catches sight of Alec and says, “Oh. Hello.” 

Arthur fixes Eames’s cufflink, saying, “This is Alec Hart.” 

“Yes,” says Alec Hart. “We’ve met.” 

Arthur looks up at Eames in surprise. 

Eames looks from Alec to Arthur and smiles a sort of small, hesitant, _oh-no_ smile. 

Arthur narrows his eyes and looks between the uncharacteristically and abruptly nervous Eames and the smug-looking Alec. 

Mal says, “Boys, as you know, we just need a few promos, nothing major, a little bit of smiling for the camera.” 

“I don’t think Arthur does smiling for the camera, does he?” says Alec. 

Arthur glares at him. 

Alec says innocently, “It’s just…I thought that was your shtick, isn’t it? Eames smiles, you don’t? Isn’t that it?” 

“I fucking smile all the fucking time,” Arthur spits at him, and then stalks over to where the photographer is in position. 

Alec follows blandly. Eames follows with his hands in his pockets and his for-the-camera smile on his face that says _move along, absolutely no complicated interpersonal relationships to see here_ and doesn’t fool Arthur at all. 

“Eames in the middle,” Mal commands. “Break up the two suits.” 

Arthur stands next to Eames and concentrates on smiling really blindingly for the camera. 

“Arthur, take a step closer to Eames,” Mal instructs. “You two look like an awkward couple at a terrible American school dance.” 

Arthur smiles harder. 

“Eames, could you maybe touch him?” says Mal. “You do have actual sex with him, don’t you, or is that all just for social media?” 

“She’s talking about me,” Arthur murmurs to Eames, out of the corner of his mouth. “In case you were confused which one of us she was referring to.” 

“Shut up,” says Eames, and puts his hand on the small of Arthur’s back, dropping a finger down to hook him closer by his belt loop. 

“I’m not saying a word,” says Arthur, keeping his voice low. “I’m smiling for the camera.” 

“Arthur, what are you doing?” asks Mal, sounding exasperated. 

“He’s smiling,” Eames answers her grimly. 

“Don’t do that anymore,” says Mal. “It’s terrifying.” 

Eames turns his head, talks directly into Arthur’s ear, his mouth brushing him. “Where are your glasses? That would make this whole thing better.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes, and it ends up being the shot they use, Eames, turned toward Arthur and smiling with what looks like teasing affection, head bent close to him, and Arthur playing his well-known role of Finding Eames Ridiculous. Alec in the shot is a grinning presence in a fedora, not looking at all like a third wheel, because it’s part of Alec’s talent. 

When the photo shoot is over and Alec departs with a cheerful wave and a foreboding “See you in a few weeks!” Arthur turns toward Eames and crosses his arms and says, “What the fuck, Eames, you and _that guy_?”

“He…” says Eames, and rubs the back of his neck. “He wasn’t supposed to be the other judge. What happened to Molly?” 

“I don’t know. I guess she dropped out and the network turned to their folder of Eames’s Exes to fill the slot.” 

“This isn’t my fault,” says Eames. 

“You slept with him, so it’s a little your fault.” 

“It’s not like I slept with him _yesterday_ ,” Eames points out. 

Suddenly Eames is the voice of fucking reason, when normally Eames never makes a single logical point, and that makes Arthur a little furious. “Fine,” he says. “You didn’t sleep with him yesterday. But the last time you fucked him: was it before or after the first time you fucked me?” 

“Um,” says Eames. 

“Today sucks,” says Arthur.


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur doesn’t let them talk about it, because Arthur is fucking awesome at avoidance. Arthur is, as Eames would say, the _best_. 

And Eames is terrible at it. Eames never met a conversational topic he didn’t want to beat to death. Eames is kind of like a dog who keeps eating, like, magnets and stuff. _No_ , you say to that dog, _stop that, that’s a terrible idea, it’s going to make everything bad_ , and the dog says, _Maybe just a little nibble? No? I mean, don’t you think magnets are delicious?_

“Okay,” says Eames, when Arthur is steadily removing the several dozen pillows Eames piles on their bed every morning in lieu of actually making the bed. “But is it okay if I get into bed? I mean, I can take the couch.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Arthur. “You can get into bed.”

“Are you getting into bed, too?” 

“Yes,” says Arthur, exasperated. “I’m not actually angry at you.” 

Eames pauses. “Are you…?” He trails off, studying Arthur like he’s a particularly challenging homeowner, as if trying to come up with an emotion Arthur might be. 

“I don’t know what I am. I’m processing. This is why we’re not talking about it. You can get into bed with me but only if you go to sleep and don’t keep bringing it up.” 

Eames nods and they get into bed and Arthur listens to how the silence is how heavy with how much Eames wants to talk to Arthur about all of this. But Arthur can’t talk right now. He’s not doing this to be cruel, he’s doing this because, as he said, he needs to process. He was blindsided by this whole thing, out of the blue in the middle of everything going really well, and Arthur doesn’t do well with being unprepared. Outside he can go through all of his motions perfectly well, but inside he’s filled with so much self-loathing that he never saw this coming and it’s no good to talk when he’s in that state. 

Arthur says softly, “Please can we just talk about all of it later? I just can’t talk about it right now.” 

“I just wish I knew sometimes what’s going on inside your head,” says Eames. 

“Me, too,” admits Arthur, and then, after a pause, “I was thinking that you’re a lot like a dog.” 

“A dog?” echoes Eames. 

“One of those yippy little terrier dogs.” 

“Never mind,” says Eames. “I don’t want to know anything more about what’s going on in your head.” 

Arthur actually chuckles, and that’s part of why he loves Eames, because Eames always reliably makes him smile, makes him laugh, and that has never come easy to Arthur. He doesn’t know why Eames is the one who has that talent. 

What he does know is it kills him a little inside to know that Eames ever did it to anyone else, ever laid in the bed dark at night and bantered. It’s a little irrational on his part, because surely, objectively, he knew Eames had done it before, but he wants to think that it’s different now, that he’s different from everyone else who came before. And maybe he’s just another guy in a suit who’s a little bit of an asshole. 

“If I’m any kind of dog,” continues Eames, “it’s a bulldog.” 

“Tenacious,” Arthur says, and he means to say it fondly but he thinks it sounds sad. 

It must sound sad, because Eames suddenly crowds into his side of the bed. He doesn’t, true to his word, say anything about Alec, though. He says, “Tenacious like a bulldog.” 

“Like an adorable terrier,” says Arthur, to keep up his side of the conversation. “A teacup terrier, even. One of those designer breeds. Crossed with a poodle.” 

There is a long pause. This is the point in the conversation when Eames would ordinarily say something like _This is why I love you, what other person would say such delightful, sinfully romantic things to me?_ Eames doesn’t because Arthur knows he doesn’t want to even obliquely bring up the topic of other people in the world who might have said romantic things to him. 

Much more romantic than comparing him to a fucking terrier, Christ, Arthur is so bad at all of this, it’s a miracle he ever even got into Eames’s bed. Alec is probably very smooth and suave, probably has a million lines. Alec and Eames together were probably such polished charm that they oozed slickness like a natural lubricant. 

Eames starts snoring, and Arthur thinks that maybe Eames is getting better at avoidance. 

Arthur isn’t sure that’s a good thing to have taught him.


	4. Chapter 4

After a while, Arthur admits that he isn’t going to get any sleep. If he’s going to process all of this, then he needs to get up and do some research. It is, after all, what he does. 

Arthur makes himself coffee and sprawls out on the couch with his laptop on his lap and Googles Alec Hart. According to Google Images, Alec Hart wears a fedora everywhere. Arthur wants to ask Eames if Alec Hart takes the fedora off to fuck or if it stays on then, too. 

His show is called _Hart of Your Home_ and Arthur thinks that Eames should have refused to sleep with the guy based on that alone. The premise, apparently, is that Alec goes to the homes of people who have tear-jerking tragic stories and redecorates some bit of their house. Arthur finds the show On Demand and watches an episode in horror, because it’s all full of well-timed sobbing breakdowns and Alec looking very serious and sympathetic as he engages in lots of hugs and comforting. Arthur weirdly can’t think of anyone in the universe who is an odder mix of Arthur and anti-Arthur all at the same time. He doesn’t know what to make of it. 

He leaves another episode playing and scrolls through the Alec Hart tag on Tumblr. People seem to really like the fedora. There is a Great Tumblr Vote and Alec Hart is voted The Only Modern Man Who Can Wear a Fedora. There’s a lot of speculation about the keeping-it-on-all-the-time thing. Arthur wants to reply and say _Hang on, let me ask my boyfriend, turns out he knows all about that_. 

Arthur, to torture himself further—but he has to know everything, isn’t that the point of research?—Googles “Alec Hart Eames,” just to see. Most of the hits are just basic pages for the network, where their respective shows are discussed together. Arthur can’t find any speculation on the two of them being an item. 

Which makes some sense, because Arthur pretty diligently Internet-stalked Eames in the days of his hopeless pining and he’d never seen any rumors about him being with Alec Hart. But generally people had wanted Eames with Arthur and maybe they’d just been ignoring all evidence of other relationships. Arthur doesn’t know. It makes no sense for him to have thought Eames had spent all that time celibate, but now, confronted with the actual evidence, he has to admit that yeah, actually, he kind of did. 

The television shuts off, and Arthur looks up in surprise at Eames, who is both sleep-rumpled adorable and disapproving. 

“What are you doing?” asks Eames. He sounds raspy and annoyed. 

“Researching,” Arthur answers honestly. 

“I thought we were avoiding this,” Eames points out shortly. 

“I said I have to process it. This is how I process.” 

“By torturing yourself by watching that awful show?” asks Eames, dropping to the floor next to the couch. 

“Oh, thank God, you think it’s awful, too,” says Arthur, with fervent relief. 

“It’s emotionally manipulative drivel,” says Eames, shutting Arthur’s laptop on him. He looks at Arthur very seriously. “If you wanted to research what happened, you could just ask me.” 

“Fine. What happened, then?” 

“I got pissed at some stupid party, is what happened.” Eames pauses. “‘Pissed’ meaning drunk, not—”

“So it was just a one-time thing.” 

“Well,” says Eames. “No, actually. But—”

“You’re not making this better,” Arthur tells him. “The Internet on this was better.” 

“What’s the Internet on this?” 

“Nothing. There’s nothing about the two of you.”

“Because it wasn’t a big thing. It wasn’t like we went on dates or anything like that. It wasn’t like I was in love with him.” 

“Was he in love with you?” asks Arthur pointedly. 

“He would have been an idiot to be in love with me.”

“Are you going to say you were emotionally unavailable or something?”

“I was in love with someone else.” 

“Who?” 

Eames stares at him. “Are you serious?” 

“Well, I don’t know,” says Arthur defensively. “My research is failing me here, and I’d rather know if you’ve got some unrequited thing going on for another of our colleagues—”

“I was in love with _you_ ,” says Eames. 

This gives Arthur pause. He blinks at Eames, feeling off-kilter. 

And then he recovers enough to go on the offensive. “Oh, really? This is an interesting story. You got pissed, as you say, at a party with me, and we went to bed, and you kicked me out the next morning. You got pissed at a party with him and went to bed and it was this whole, like, _thing_ \--”

“It wasn’t a thing.” 

“You didn’t kick him out in the morning.” 

“I didn’t have to kick him out,” Eames snaps at him. “I wasn’t in love with him and he wasn’t going to become completely indispensable to me if I let him stay a moment longer. I slept with you and kicked you out because you were everything I wanted and I’m a coward. I slept with him and kept doing it because he was nothing I wanted and I’m a coward. But I was in love with you the whole time.” 

Arthur doesn’t know what to think about this. He knows that Eames regretted the way their one-night stand ended but he’s never heard Eames say before that he was in love with him then. In fact, he’d always thought that Eames didn’t fall in love with him until later, after. He says uncertainly, “You didn’t seem like you were,” because he remembers how horrible it was, to be so sick with love over someone who treated him so casually. 

“Because I’m a conman, darling. Have you not noticed this yet? I don’t design for people, I design for myself and then I convince them that they like it and then I run away before the spell wears off. I’m good at letting people see what I want them to see. And I’m trying like fuck to keep this going here with you because I don’t ever want you to go and maybe I’m shooting myself in the foot here but it’s all smoke and mirrors, darling.”

It’s true, thinks Arthur. Eames is a performer at heart. An actor. And Arthur supposes that means that he’s never sure when he’s getting the real Eames. He wants to believe this is the real Eames, because it’s the one that says he loves him and makes him laugh and makes him so fucking happy that Arthur lets himself think the traitorous thought that he would let Eames do anything—anything—if Eames would just _stay_. 

Sometimes Arthur hates everything about the mess of his personal life just as he much as he loves it. 

And he says that, bluntly. “Your life is a mess and it’s bled over into my life.” 

“I’m a fixer-upper,” Eames reminds him, with a hopeful smile. “You knew that going in.” 

“Fuck,” sighs Arthur, and leans forward so he can fit his head against Eames’s neck and breathe him in. 

“Let’s pull out of the show.” 

“Oh, God, no,” groans Arthur. “Christ, that would be _horrible_. Alec would gloat.” 

“Gloat at who? It isn’t like we socialize with him. Who cares if he gloats?” 

“I care. He would gloat in his heart and I would know and I couldn’t stand that. That’s clearly what this was all about today. He made a point of going out of his way to introduce himself to me, and he was sizing me up to see if I knew, and he’s an obnoxious prick and there’s no way I’m letting him win.” 

“Darling, I’ve got news for you.” 

“You have some sort of weird thing for obnoxious pricks?” 

“You already won. Whose pants are my hands down right now?” 

“A dubious honor,” says Arthur. 

“Yeah, I guess I do have a thing for obnoxious pricks,” says Eames, and pulls Arthur off the couch and onto the floor with him. 

Arthur lands mostly sprawled out on Eames and he is smiling when he lifts his head up and he’s going to say something, what he doesn’t know, but something obnoxious because he’s got a reputation to uphold. 

But Eames catches his face between his hands and says, “I love you. I loved you the whole time. It’s clear to me now that you didn’t realize that so I’m being very careful and explicit. I loved you the moment I saw you. Mostly I loved your tight trousers. But then I just loved you. It isn’t that I have a thing for obnoxious pricks. It’s that I have a thing for _you_.”

And Arthur doesn’t say anything obnoxious. Arthur says, because he doesn’t _get_ it, “What changed your mind? You pushed me away and then you pulled me in and I don’t get what I did to change your mind.” 

“I changed my mind the minute you walked out the door. Because I realized the only thing worse than letting you in was the way you looked—the way it felt—to shut you out. I just never thought I had a chance after what I did. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I don’t get what _I_ did to change _your_ mind.” 

Arthur wants to say, _I never stopped wanting you the entire time, I wanted you even as I walked out your door_. He says instead, “I have a thing for fixer-uppers, I guess.” 

“Lucky me,” says Eames.


	5. Chapter 5

Eames is off on a shopping expedition with a client and Arthur is scrolling housing listings for a client of his own, curled up on the squashy chair in his office. Arthur has a proper desk chair with a proper desk but he never works at it because the squashy chair is the most comfortable thing in the entire house. 

The doorbell rings. Well, the doorbell trills, because Eames had this idea about having a doorbell that sounded like a nightingale or some such piece of nonsense. Everyone thinks their doorbell is “unique” and “fantastic.” Arthur, meanwhile, is constantly startled by birdsong when he’s outside because he thinks it’s their doorbell. 

Arthur is spending the day at home, so he’s wearing one of Eames’s t-shirts and a pair of slouchy jeans and fuzzy slippers Eames got him for Christmas because Arthur complained about how cold all the marble floors in their house are. And Arthur goes to answer the door because Eames gets a lot of deliveries and Arthur is constantly signing for them. 

Arthur, of course, doesn’t open the door without first seeing who it is. He peeks out of the window on the second floor gallery and underneath him, standing by their old, wrought-iron-and-glass front doors, is a man in a fedora. 

Either the delivery people are getting really creative with their uniforms, or Alec Hart is at their front door. 

“Fuck,” mutters Arthur, and swipes a hand through his hair as if he can magically make it behave. No, wait. What is he doing? He doesn’t have to answer the door. He can pretend to be out. Yes. 

The doorbell trills again while Arthur is standing there and then Alec Hart takes a step backward and looks up and spots him standing at the window and waves. 

Arthur thinks he should just fling himself out of the window because nobody as stupid as he is deserves to live. Surely Darwinism should have taken care of his very stupid genes. 

Arthur makes some kind of gesture with his hand that could be a wave or could also be a _fuck off_ gesture. Arthur himself isn’t sure. But he does know that he can’t just stand in the window and not let the idiot in. Not now he’s been spotted. Alec will surely mention it to Eames. _Oh, I stopped by and your unkempt boyfriend refused to let me in. You have to watch out for the jealous ones, you know. He could go crazy and kill you in your sleep._

Arthur walks down the stairs to the front room, which used to be one of the main stores on their little chain of former shops and is thus just one big entry hall. Eames does the cocktail receptions in here but otherwise they never use it, going in and out the back of the house where the actual living areas are. It’s a cavernous space and it takes Arthur a little while to traverse it. On the way he considers texting Eames and then decides that it will just ruin Eames’s shopping trip and Eames loves shopping trips. And Arthur especially loves when Eames’s shopping trips are for other people so they don’t end up with creepy lamps in the shape of clown faces that Eames says are so horrible he had to buy them because if he didn’t no one else would. 

Eames anthropomorphizes furnishings. 

Arthur opens the front door and says, “Hi,” and hopes he’s smiling like a normal person. According to Mal after the promo photography session, that is not a skill Arthur has necessarily learned. 

“Art!” exclaims Alec, as if they are the best of friends, and Arthur remembers he did say they were BFFs and Alec is probably one of those people who doesn’t understand sarcasm. 

“Arthur,” Arthur corrects him. 

“Right,” says Alec, with a curl of a smile, “but what do your friends call you?” 

“Arthur,” says Arthur. 

“Eames calls you Arthur?” says Alec, with a little _now, now, I know better_ look in his eyes. 

Everyone knows that Eames calls him darling. Eames never calls him anything but. “Don’t you watch our show?” Arthur asks blandly. “I thought you were a huge fan.” 

“Well, yeah, but that’s for the camera. What does he call you at home?” 

That surprises Arthur. He wonders how many other people think it’s an act. He says, “Snookums.” 

Alec laughs that over-enthusiastic laugh he has. 

“Was there something you wanted?” Arthur asks. “Other than uncovering the astonishing fact that people call me by my name.” 

“You’re not what I expected,” says Alec, as he recovers from his laughter. 

Arthur doesn’t know what to make of that. He says, “I’ll tell Eames you stopped by.” 

“Oh, is he not home?” asks Alec. “I was hoping to talk to both of you.” Alec gestures with whatever he’s holding. Now that Arthur is paying attention, they look like huge binders. 

“What are those?” Arthur asks. 

“Dossiers,” says Alec, and does this waggling eyebrows thing that reminds Arthur of Eames in an unpleasant way. 

“Dossiers?” Arthur echoes. “What the fuck is this, some kind of interior designer spy ring?” 

“Well, it goes with the whole theme of the show,” Alec says. “You know, our mission and all that. Discovering the next big thing.” 

Arthur wants to bang his head against the wall. He doesn’t. He says, like a normal human being, “Great. Thank you for bringing us our…dossiers.” He holds out his hands for them. 

Alec doesn’t hand them over. Alec says, “Can I come in?” 

_No_ , Arthur wants to say. _You can’t come in. This is my home and I don’t want you in it._ Arthur says instead, thinking it sounds slightly better, “I’m kind of in the middle of something.” 

“But I hear this house is quite something,” Alec attempts to cajole. 

“It is,” Arthur confirms. “And you can see lots of photographs of it online. _Vogue_ did a particularly nice spread, I thought, although Eames is partial to the one that was in _W_.” 

“I told Mal I’d bring these over to you expressly so I could get a peek at the inside in person. Photos never do justice to Eames’s work, you know that.” Alec smiles at him like they are in this little secret about Eames together. 

Arthur says, “See, the thing is, I’d absolutely let you in except that half of the house is a sex dungeon and we’re kind of in the middle of an orgy and I’d have to go get releases for you to sign because the lawyers have a fit if we let anyone in who hasn’t been vetted and signed NDAs and really, running an underground sex club? Tons of paperwork. Not nearly as fun as you might think. I can’t even let you over the threshold without three separate forms of identification and a power of attorney. You wouldn’t believe the bureaucracy. It’s like Kafka.” 

Alec’s smile doesn’t really falter but it does stiffen a little bit. He gives Arthur an appraising look. Arthur wonders if he thought he’d find Arthur easier to crack and is a little pleased with himself. 

And he does seem to switch tactics. He goes from breezily flirty in a weird way to his impression of sincere. Arthur thinks of the way Alec’s face scrunches up all serious on his show so that he can project _intense sympathy and concern_. “I feel like you and I might have gotten off on the wrong foot,” says Alec. 

“Do you? I think we got off on exactly the right foot. Is there a reason for us not to be on the right foot?” Arthur asks this very innocently. 

Alec just keeps looking at him appraisingly. Then he switches tactics again, dropping the sincere scrunch-face. “I’m not sure I can take a conversation about feet seriously when you’re wearing those.” He nods at Arthur’s fuzzy slippers. 

Arthur says, “We’re even then, because I can’t take anything about you seriously when you’re wearing that.” Arthur nods at Alec’s fedora. 

Alec, after a pause, smiles again. It’s a slightly different sort of smile, no longer attempting oily charm, more thoughtful and calculating. He says, “Really not at all what I expected.” 

Arthur decides he’s had enough of all of this. “Thanks for the dossiers, the hand delivery of hard copy documents by a man wearing a fedora is all very retro, I appreciate the effort.” He reaches forward and snatches the binders out of Alec’s hands. 

Alec’s smile doesn’t falter. “You realize I’m just going to keep contriving ways to see the inside of this house.” 

“Knock yourself out, although I feel I should warn you that I do have a gun and I do get a little jumpy when it comes to intruders.” Arthur shrugs. 

“Well,” says Alec, “I imagine the orgies gets distracting. You’d need someone willing to stand guard. Someone not ruled by base, carnal pleasures.” 

“So, as we know,” says Arthur flatly, “that leaves Eames out. Thanks again for stopping by. Watch your hat, I hear it’s supposed to get windy later.” Arthur closes the door in his face and walks with calm, measured steps out of the front room and to his office, where he drops the stupid dossier binders on his desk and looks up on YouTube how to disconnect the doorbell.


	6. Chapter 6

Eames comes in and flops on the couch in Arthur’s office. He has the blissful look on his face that Arthur wishes he associated with sex but if he’s honest usually is more likely to be seen after a successful day of shopping. 

“Good day?” asks Arthur from his favorite squashy chair. 

“Excellent day,” says Eames without opening his eyes. “I talked her out of the toile and into the tweed. ‘Twas a triumph. To say nothing of my alliteration.” 

“You’re a veritable poet,” says Arthur. Eames is reaching for him blindly. He is watching the flailing of Eames’s hand with a little bit of amusement. 

Eames gives up and opens his eyes and twists his body on the couch. “You moved the chair,” he accuses, and flails again for good measure. “Look at how far away it is.” 

“I’m trying to promote less sex in the office, more sex in the bedroom.”

“You think I’m so lazy that I won’t get up off of this couch to blow you in that chair?” 

“I think you are exactly that lazy,” says Arthur. 

Eames considers the extra few feet of space Arthur has added between couch and chair and says, “Okay, fair enough.” 

Arthur shakes his head and rolls his eyes. 

Eames settles more comfortably onto the couch and says, “So what’d you do today? Find someone a dream house?” 

“No, but I think I did manage expectations somewhat.”

“Tell me you sent them a listing of a palace and wrote in the e-mail: ‘See this? Well, you can afford its outhouse. Maybe.’”

“Palaces don’t generally have outhouses, I don’t think,” says Arthur. 

“‘You can afford its outhouse. If it had an outhouse. But it doesn’t. Therefore, you cannot afford anything to do with this. Good day, sir.’”

Arthur is openly amused. “In your head, do I communicate with my clients like I’m Jeeves the butler?” 

“I was thinking more like the last scene of Willy Wonka. ‘I said, “Good day!”’”

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t know that movie.” 

Eames rolls off the couch with a dramatic thunk. 

Arthur rolls his eyes again. “Oh, for God’s sake.” 

“You don’t know that movie?” exclaims Eames. “Darling, don’t just casually make proclamations like that, my heart can’t take them.” 

“Why would I know that movie?” asks Arthur, watching Eames, who is now crawling gradually toward him but making dramatic noises as if Arthur has pained him greatly. If Eames were an actual actor, Arthur thinks sometimes, he would be an Elizabethan one, one of those whose characters would deliver whole three-page soliloquies after receiving a fatal wound.

“Everyone knows that movie. _Everyone_.” Eames finally reaches Arthur’s chair and collapses, kneeling, with his head in Arthur’s lap. “Darling, let’s watch Willy Wonka tonight.” 

“We’re not going to start using ‘Willy Wonka’ as a euphemism,” Arthur informs him, combing at his hair. 

Eames shifts to look at him, sending him puppy-dog eyes. “No?” 

“No. It’s alarming.” 

“Not doing it for you?” 

“No.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames, and shrugs. “Have it your way, darling.” He leans upward to kiss Arthur, a gentle brush of lips. Arthur can tell Eames has intentions, but he’s getting there slowly, which is fine with Arthur. 

“Want to know what else I did today?” asks Arthur, accepting another quick brush of a kiss. 

“Of course,” mumbles Eames, much more concerned with kissing at the moment. 

“I had tomato soup for lunch,” says Arthur, “and a grilled cheese.” 

Eames hums something ambiguous into Arthur’s skin. 

“I flipped through the latest issue of Architectural Digest.” 

“That’s it,” Eames encourages. “Keep talking dirty, darling.” 

Arthur smiles into Eames’s kiss and says, “Oh, and yeah, that’s right, I almost forgot: your boyfriend stopped by.” 

“My boyfriend?” says Eames, not deterred from the kissing. “I thought my boyfriend was right here.” He rests his palm on Arthur’s chest, gently possessive. 

“Mmm,” Arthur says. “No, your other boyfriend.” 

“Han Solo came here? What a neat trick, considering he’s fictional and all.” 

“He tried his whole sincere sympathy thing with me,” Arthur continues, letting Eames push him further into his chair, speaking around Eames’s kisses. “He was all—‘I think—we got off on the wrong foot’—and—”

Eames abruptly stops kissing him. He pulls back and stares incredulously down at Arthur. “Hang on, you’re serious,” he realizes. 

“You thought I was joking?”

“Yes, frankly,” Eames says, looking astonished. 

“Nope, it’s all true. Except for the Architectural Digest bit, I made that up.” 

“Bastard, that was the best part,” says Eames, but distractedly. He sits back on his heels and says, “Alec came _here_?”

“He claims he wants to see what it looks like.” 

“Really?” Eames blinks at him. “What did…Did you give him a tour?” 

Arthur snorts. “I didn’t even let him past the front door. I don’t want him in my house. There is to be no Hart in our home, thank you very much. I don’t let fedoras in the house, it’s bad enough I let your shirts in here.” 

Eames still looks floored by the story. “So he showed up here, asked for a tour, and you told him no?” 

Arthur pretends to consider. “Basically. Oh, and then I re-wired our doorbell to me saying ‘Go away, Alec’ whenever someone rings it.” 

Eames looks like he’s beginning to process things now. “I don’t get it. Why would he come here? Do I need to tell him to back off?” 

“No,” Arthur says sharply. “You’re not going to tell him anything. I’m not going to have him spreading rumors that I need you to come to my rescue or something.” 

“It wouldn’t be coming to your rescue, it would be—”

“He dropped off our dossiers.” 

“Our…?” Eames looks as blank at the term as Arthur had. “Has someone put out a hit on us or something?” 

“No, that’s what they’re calling—I don’t know, actually, I didn’t bother to look at them. The doorbell was a fucking pain in the ass to rewire, it took most of the afternoon.” Arthur waves at the desk, where the binders are still sitting. 

Eames reaches to grab one of them and sits on the floor with it and then looks up at Arthur. “Does the doorbell really say ‘Go away, Alec’?”

“No. It doesn’t say anything anymore. I’ve disconnected it. Tell your deliveries to come around to the back.” 

“Fair enough,” says Eames, and goes back to the binder on his lap. 

Arthur frowns at him and says, “Hey.” 

“Hmm?” Eames flips a page. 

“I thought you were, like, leading up to something here.” Arthur doesn’t try an eyebrow waggle because he doesn’t have them down the way Eames does but he does try to strike a somewhat seductive pose. 

“I was leading up to something,” says Eames innocently, “but that’s when I thought I was kissing my boyfriend. Now I have so many boyfriends running around that frankly I’m confused and not sure where to turn.” 

“It’s very trying to be as hot as you are,” Arthur drawls at him. 

“Thank you for understanding, darling,” says Eames gravely. 

Arthur sighs, “I have to do everything myself,” and pushes the binder off of Eames’s lap and shoves him back to the soft, feathery rug that extends out from underneath Arthur’s desk. 

Eames grins up at him. “Ah, _there’s_ the boyfriend I know and love so well.” 

“If you ever get confused,” Arthur tells him, “I’m the one without the stupid hat.” 

“Trust me, darling, there is never any mistaking you for anyone else on the planet.” 

Arthur thinks that’s a compliment.


	7. Chapter 7

Eames returns from his trip to the kitchen with a binder tucked under each arm, a plate heaped high with gorgeously toasted slices of baguette…and Marmite. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at him. 

“Relax,” Eames tells him. “I brought you the Nutella, too.” 

“Only a cretin chooses Marmite over Nutella, you know,” Arthur informs him, as he clambers back into the bed. “And try not to leave too many crumbs.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Eames, and Arthur knows he’s ignoring him. 

Arthur picks up a piece of toast and slathers it with Nutella and Eames pushes a binder his way. 

“Who the fuck does things on paper anymore?” Arthur asks. 

“Cobb says Mal is old-fashioned,” Eames replies. 

“Cobb would say anything about Mal if he thought it would help get in her pants,” Arthur notes. 

“Ah, young love,” sighs Eames. 

“Neither young nor love,” says Arthur, and opens his binder and munches on his toast. 

At least the Nutella makes the binder less tedious. 

Arthur knew the general set-up of the show before he’d agreed to it. The binder simply gives them more detail. The show is starting with twelve contestants. Mostly their interaction with the contestants will just be for final judging, but they’ll periodically be given assignments to go with the contestants on various tasks, to mentor them in certain ways, to give them constructive feedback before judging happens. It’s not a lot of work, and Arthur will be with Eames almost all the time, so he shouldn’t be feeling nervous. 

He is again, though, it’s gnawing through his stomach. And the last time he felt nervous Alec Hart walked into their life so Arthur’s not a huge fan of nervousness. 

The dossier has a schedule of the episodes and their themes and challenges, together with indications of when one or all of them has a special responsibility. Arthur’s eyes flit down the page. He’s actually separated from Eames a decent amount of time, which is annoying. They’ve seemed to give him extra responsibility for the episodes that are lighter on actual designing. In one episode, clearly included just for Arthur, the designers have to stage an open house. In another Arthur-centric episode, they’re tasked with painting a room. 

Arthur stares at the description of that one. _Painting_ a _room_? What the fuck is he going to mentor when it comes to that? 

Eames is happily eating his disgusting Marmite and flipping through the binder as if he hasn’t a care in the world. Arthur tears himself away from the episode descriptions and looks through the rest of the binder. It’s information on all of the contestants: pictures, resumes, portfolios. Eames is already making little noises to himself as he flips through the portfolios and no doubt he has all sorts of instructive things to say about the interaction of that pattern with this color and that particular pillow over there. Arthur’s main note on each design is _nice_ or _not that nice_. 

What is he doing? 

He asks Eames. “What am I doing?” 

“Foregoing Marmite for Nutella,” Eames replies, and folds down the corner of a portfolio page. Because Eames thinks that particular page means something important, Arthur guesses. 

“See this room?” Arthur lifts up his binder, which is open to a sketch of a room decorated all in shades of pale blues and greens, with lots of tiny diamond and check and polka-dotted patterns in the fabrics, and furniture that’s a combination of gleaming metallic and bright white wood. 

Eames studies the room and nods. 

“What do you see?” 

“She’s trying to use the metallic and the patterns to add some interest to what’s actually a fairly monochromatic color palette, because the blues and greens are so close together they might as well all be one color. It’s not a bad instinct, but I think there’s a bit too much pattern and at the same time not quite enough fabric, too much coldness in the room. It needs to be warmed up. The visual engagement is too flat.” 

Arthur looks back at the drawing of the room. He said, “My comment on this one is ‘reminds me of the sea.’”

“Probably what she was going for,” Eames allows. 

“ _Eames_ ,” says Arthur. “Do you see what I’m saying?” 

Eames looks honestly perplexed. “About the sea?” 

“No, about how I don’t know what I’m talking about. You had a whole paragraph about this room. I didn’t even come up with a haiku.” 

“Darling, what are you always saying to me?” asks Eames. 

Very broad question, thinks Arthur. “I need more specificity. I say a lot of things to you very frequently.” 

“It’s true. You say: ‘Eames, I spent a lot of money on those pans; please stop burning the bottoms of them.’”

“I do,” Arthur agrees. “I don’t know what I have to say that to you so often, but I do. Not entirely relevant to this conversation, though.” 

“But an undeniably common thing you say to me. You also say, ‘Eames, you’re so fucking hot I can’t stand it.’”

“I don’t say that very often,” Arthur deadpans. 

“You could say it more often,” Eames allows. 

“Uh-huh,” says Arthur. 

“What you say _most_ often to me is: ‘Eames, please shut up, why don’t you ever stop talking?’”

“You do talk too much,” says Arthur. 

“I do. And most of it’s nonsense. So of course I had a whole paragraph to say. A whole paragraph of nonsense words that just sound good. And you got straight to the point: the room’s meant to evoke the sea.” 

“I guess,” says Arthur doubtfully. 

“You’re good with fabric,” Eames reminds him. “It’s just like picking out a suit. When in doubt, go with that.” 

That does make Arthur feel a little bit better. He can pick out a sharp suit. If he thinks of a room as a suit, then he might be okay. 

Arthur’s cell phone rings where it’s sitting on the nightstand and Arthur looks at it in surprise. “It’s Cobb.” 

“Oh, Christ, he’s ringing to gossip about Mal.” 

“Ringing me instead of you, though?” Arthur answers curiously. “Hello?” 

“Do you have a sex dungeon in your house?” is what Cobb says in response. 

Arthur freezes. “What?” he says. 

Eames says, “Tell him to hurry up because we’re in bed. Did you hear that, Cobb?” he shouts. “We’re _in bed together_!” 

“Christ,” says Cobb, “is there some kind of sex dungeon thing going on right now?” 

“No,” spits Arthur, “there’s no—where are you getting this information?” But Arthur is already pulling his laptop over, opening it up. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Cobb sarcastically. “ _Everywhere_. What’s Mal going to say? I vouched for you guys! I said you wouldn’t ruin her show! And now the first headline about Next Big Thing is that its hosts have a sex dungeon together!” 

Arthur isn’t really paying attention to Cobb. Arthur is Googling “Arthur Eames sex dungeon” and yup, there it is, well, everywhere. Just like Cobb said. 

Eames is looking over Arthur’s shoulder. “We have a sex dungeon?” he says. “Do we have a sex dungeon that you never told me about? No fair, darling.” 

Arthur ignores him, clicking on the first result, which is, of course, a Daily Mail thing. _Their home may be splashed all over every fashion magazine but one important detail got left out of all the photo spreads: THEIR SEX DUNGEON. That’s right. Interior designer Eames apparently knows just what to put in a room to get the inhabitants to ‘love it’—CARNALLY. And not just a few inhabitants, either. According to sources, Eames and his on-screen-off-screen partner are into ORGIES. And their ‘underground sex club’ is the hottest ticket in town. ‘You can’t get in without three forms of ID,’ says fellow design show star Alec Hart, who’s clearly angling for an invitation. ‘At least, that’s what Arthur said.’ You can see Eames and Arthur acting as celebrity judges on new reality competition show Next Big Thing. No word yet if there’ll be a sex dungeon challenge!”_

“Son of a bitch,” says Arthur. 

Eames has his chin resting on Arthur’s shoulder. He says thoughtfully, “Why don’t I ever get invited to these orgies, darling? I’m feeling very left out. And how much money are you making from this underground sex club you’re running, anyway?” 

“Tell Eames to take this seriously,” Cobb snaps at Arthur. “Oh, Christ, what is Mal going to think of me?” he moans. 

“Oh, grow up,” Eames says into Arthur’s phone. “Mal’s French, she’s going to love this sex dungeon thing, she’s going to be first in line to get in. If you’re really good, we’ll tell her that we’ve got to know you well at our orgies and you’re well worth her time.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “We’re not saying that. If people think we’re having orgies, I want them to think they’re quality orgies, I don’t want them to be orgies with _Cobb_.” 

“Hey!” Cobb protests petulantly. 

“You were just complaining you didn’t want anything to do with our sex dungeon,” Arthur reminds him. 

“I don’t want anything to do with it, but I want to be _invited_ so I can turn you down,” sulks Cobb. 

“Well, we don’t have one.” Arthur Googles “Alec Hart sex dungeon” to try to chase down the original quote, and there it is: a series of Alec Hart tweets. _Tried to charm my way into the famous Eames/Arthur lair, but no luck. Apparently, you can’t gain entry while the orgies are in full swing. Yes, that’s right, sex dungeon and all. You can’t get in without three forms of ID. At least, that’s what Arthur said._

“Cobb, we have to ring your back,” Eames said into Arthur’s phone. “I need to get to the bottom of all the orgies taking place here while I’m not around.” 

Arthur hangs up on Cobb’s protests and says to Eames, “Obviously I wasn’t serious when I told Alec we have a sex dungeon.” 

“Darling, if you wanted a sex dungeon, all you had to do was ask. I don’t know about the orgies, though. You’re right, it depends on the quality of people. Who would be on your guest list?” Eames leans back, munching on his toast with Marmite, like they’re having a fucking slumber party and talking about what celebrities they’d like to grow up to marry. 

“He knew I wasn’t serious about the sex dungeon,” says Arthur. 

“I don’t know,” says Eames, licking Marmite off his finger. “You do exude feral sexuality. I could see you as the manager of some decadent sex club. You’d wear these crisp, untouchable suits and stalk through half-naked people in various states of coupling, making sure everything was under control, oh, my God, this is a fantasy I didn’t know I had, let’s have sex.” 

“Be serious,” says Arthur. 

“I’m being very serious. You’ve missed your calling. If you’re bored with the show, I fully support you going into sex club management.” 

“Do you know how many questions I’m going to be asked about this? They’re going to ask why Alec would say something like that, and I’m going to have to admit it’s because I told him, but obviously it was a joke and they’re going to say, ‘He didn’t think it was a joke’—”

“And your problem will be your feral sexuality,” Eames adds. “No one will believe you’re not a sex club manager once they get this in their heads.” 

“I don’t have feral sexuality. I was wearing those fucking fuzzy slippers you bought me.” 

“I bought you those in order to try to manage your feral sexuality. They clearly don’t work.” Eames spread more Marmite on more toast. 

“Are you going to be at all helpful here? Or, when asked for a comment, are you going to say things like, ‘Arthur would be a bloody spectacular sex club manager, don’t you think?’”

Eames points at Arthur with his toast. “That’s not how I sound.” 

“It’s exactly how you sound,” Arthur says. 

“Look, why did you tell him you were managing a sex club if you didn’t want him telling other people you were managing a sex club?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t _know_. It seemed like a good idea at the time. This is the most ridiculous PR issue anyone has ever had,” Arthur complains, pushing the laptop away from him in disgust. “Oh, my God, my mother is going to hear about this. _My mother_ , Eames.” 

“Darling, if you want me to take the blame for pushing you into your depraved lifestyle, I shall fall upon that sword for you, such is the depth of my love for you.” 

“When people ask me how you are in the orgies, I’m going to say you’re terrible,” Arthur tells him. “I’m going to say that you’re the worst at orgies.” 

“How is one bad at an orgy?” 

“Hey, which of us has the sex club management expertise? I know my orgies, okay? Do not question my judgment of orgies.” 

“And you wonder where people get the idea that you manage a sex club,” remarks Eames. 

“I don’t wonder where people get that idea. They get that idea from your obnoxious ex-boyfriend with the stupid fedora.”

“Right, but my obnoxious ex-boyfriend with the stupid fedora got that idea from you,” Eames points out. 

Arthur ignores that detail. “When people ask me about the sex dungeon thing. I’m going to say, ‘Why would you believe anything coming from a man in a fedora?’”

“I have an idea,” says Eames. 

“Does this idea involve adding a sex dungeon to this place?” 

“No, I’m saving that for tomorrow. This is an idea for tonight.” 

“I bet this idea involves sex.” 

“It involves Marmite,” says Eames. 

“This is why you suck at orgies,” says Arthur. 

Eames smears Marmite on Arthur’s neck. 

Arthur squirms and says, “Ugh, that’s so gross,” but he can feel that Eames is smiling as he licks the Marmite up and the truth is Arthur is smiling, too. 

Eames straddles Arthur’s body and dips his finger into the Marmite jar and says, “Tomorrow, when people ask us about our exciting sex life, let’s say that last night’s orgy involved Marmite.” 

“I’m not throwing an orgy involving Marmite,” says Arthur, as Eames dabs some Marmite on Arthur’s nipples and then licks it off. “What kind of second-rate sex club do you think I’m running?” Arthur asks breathlessly. 

“Blame it on me,” suggests Eames. “Say I’m so fucking terrible at orgies but give me the lure of Marmite and my performance visibly improves.” Eames can’t even get the sentence out before he’s collapsed on Arthur’s chest in peals of laughter. 

“It’s the grossest substance known to man,” says Arthur, around his own laughter, “but Christ, does it turn Eames on.” 

“We let you off the three-forms-of-ID requirement if you show up with Marmite,” gasps Eames. 

“We’ll end up with people sending us Marmite, Eames,” Arthur manages.

“Free Marmite!” exults Eames. “Better than an orgy any day!” 

Arthur laughs until there are tears coming out of his eyes, and then he sprawls pleasantly under Eames and just enjoys the way their bodies move together in breath. There will be sex, eventually, Arthur knows, but he likes this bit, too. He’s never really had this before. Just…sprawled in bed laughing. Touching not because it’s getting to a climax but because life is better with the warmth of contact in it. 

“You’re out of your mind,” Arthur sighs, and pulls his hand through Eames’s hair. 

Eames doesn’t disagree. Eames kisses his collarbone. 

Arthur says hoarsely, honestly, “I never think it’s possible to love you any more than I already do. And then I do.” 

Eames lifts his head up and looks at him and smiles.


	8. Chapter 8

Their filming obligations for the first episode are very light. There are so many contestants that the judges’ mentoring stints are reserved until there are fewer people involved and greater one-on-one interaction easier. So they really just have to show up and stand around while the challenge is read to the contestants, and then they come back a few days later and they judge. It should be the easiest money Arthur has ever made. 

Except that Arthur has to put up with Alec Hart and His Fucking Fedora (which is Alec’s full name in Arthur’s head) and so he thinks he should have negotiated a better salary for this terrible job. 

Eames is bouncy with excitement and completely in his element. This is Eames’s thing, meeting new people and charming all of them with his Labrador retriever reserves of energy. Arthur texts to him: _I’ve changed my mind. You’re not a terrier. You’re a Labrador._ Eames is in the middle of an intense conversation with the catering team and glances at his phone when it goes off, thumbs through the text even as he keeps talking, and then lifts an eyebrow across the room at Arthur. Arthur watches him type a reply and send it. _Is this some sort of role-playing thing?_

Yusuf says, “Hello, Arthur.” 

Arthur looks at him and feels like he could almost hug him. “Yusuf! What are you doing here?” 

“The cameraperson Mal had lined up had some family emergency thing, and Cobb’s trying to get with Mal so he immediately volunteered me for extra work because I have no life of my own and am nothing but a pawn in the lives of the true talents who make reality television.” 

“It’s so good to see a familiar face,” Arthur says, and wonders if he’s gushing. But it is. Arthur and Yusuf aren’t all that friendly, but at least it’s one less person who’s going to have to get used to the fact that Arthur isn’t nearly as comfortable in front of a camera as he ought to be. 

“You’ve got a familiar face,” Yusuf says, and points over his shoulder. 

Arthur assumes he means to be gesturing to Eames but Eames has bounded off to a new group of people somewhere and instead Yusuf is pointing at Alec Hart, who is fixing himself a cup of coffee at the catering table and yet still manages to send Arthur a cheerful little wave. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and deliberately turns back to Yusuf. “So,” he says, and fishes around for a topic of conversation. How does Eames do this with everyone in the universe as if it takes zero effort? “How are the kids?” Arthur settles on. 

Yusuf stares at him. “I don’t have kids.” 

“Right,” says Arthur, who actually did know that, now that he thinks about it. This is why he shouldn’t be allowed to do things like this. “So, how’s not having kids?” 

Yusuf lifts his eyebrows and then he says, “I want to talk about this sex dungeon thing.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, because Arthur does not want to talk about the sex dungeon thing. Having had to tell his mother that no, there’s no need for him to explain to her exactly what a sex dungeon is because he doesn’t have one, Arthur really never wants to hear the words _sex dungeon_ again in his life. 

“No, I always knew you two were up to stuff like that. You have the kinkiest conversations right in front of everyone.” 

Arthur tries to think back over every conversation he’s had in public with Eames. “No, we don’t,” he says, baffled. 

“You’re always talking about houses and plumbing and carpeting and stuff.” 

Arthur stares at him. “Yeah. We work on a show about houses and plumbing and carpeting.” 

“Yeah, but when you two talk about that stuff, it’s all a code. Don’t worry, we’ve got it all worked out.” Yusuf waggles his finger at Arthur. “Filthy,” he pronounces. 

To make Arthur’s day worse, Alec Hart says, “Oh, are we talking about your sex dungeon orgies again? Excellent, I have perfect timing.” 

“I never get invited to the sex dungeon orgies, either,” Yusuf tells Alec sadly. 

“We’ll start our own rival sex club,” Alec says to Yusuf. “Show these two.” 

“It’s a lot of paperwork,” Arthur says flatly. “I already warned you.” 

“He’s hilarious,” Alec says to Yusuf. “Don’t you think he’s hilarious?” 

“Arthur?” says Yusuf, as if to clarify who they’re discussing, and there’s no need for Yusuf to sound that disbelieving. 

Mal calls for attention just as Arthur announces, “I _am_ hilarious,” into the suddenly silent room and finds all eyes on him. 

Mal gives him a look that says, _First sex dungeons, now this, it’s like you’ve never been on television before_. She says, “I thought it would be a good idea to let the contestants get to know the judges a little bit. There’ll be more one-on-one time for those contestants who last longer in the competition, but this way it gives those who will be eliminated early something to tell the people at home about. The network has told me that I must warn you to be good ambassadors and as charming as possible and, Arthur, please don’t talk about your underground sex club.” 

“You’re the only judge anyone’s going to want to talk to,” Alec tells Arthur, as Mal goes scurrying off, presumably to bring the contestants in. 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Arthur says, deadpan. “I’m sure you have a lot to offer, too.” 

“Hi,” says Eames, a little breathlessly, because he apparently had to come jogging over from the opposite side of the room where he was probably busy trying to charm people who don’t even work on their show. “Hello. Hi.” 

“Hi,” Alec says to him, looking amused. 

“Hi, Yusuf,” Eames says, catching sight of him. 

Arthur says, “Have we said ‘hi’ enough now?” 

“See? He’s hilarious,” Alec says to Yusuf. 

“He is hilarious,” Eames says loyally. “Arthur is the funniest person I know.” 

Yusuf looks at Eames. “ _Arthur_ is?” 

Alec does his over-dramatic laugh, throwing his head back to really get into it. Arthur wonders how his hat doesn’t fall off of his head when he does that. Is it glued on? 

“Someone I want you to meet, darling,” Eames says, and nudges Arthur away from Alec and Yusuf. 

“Is it a hitman?” Arthur asks. 

“What?” says Eames. 

“Is the person you want me to meet a hitman?” 

“No,” says Eames. “There is no actual person I want you to meet. I just thought that you might slice their throats with your cufflinks if I let you stand there any longer.” 

“I am very funny,” Arthur says a little petulantly. “Just because I don’t go around laughing like a hyena constantly…”

“Do I laugh like a hyena?” Eames sounds concerned. 

“I was referring to Alec,” Arthur tells him. 

“Darling, don’t pay attention to Alec,” says Eames cajolingly. “You’re hilarious and delightful and don’t let him get to you.” 

“Arthur, my lovely,” says Mal, coming up to them. 

“I am not going to talk about my sex club,” Arthur promises her in exasperation. 

“No!” Mal protests. “Talk about it! Talk about it constantly! I’ve never seen an incredibly boring reality television show about _designers_ \--no offense, Eames, dear heart—have so much buzz. Do you know how many contestants have asked me if an invitation to your sex club is going to be a perk? Can we make that happen?” 

Arthur stares at her. “What? No.” 

Mal pouts. “Aw, don’t be that way.” She pats her hands over the lapels of Arthur’s suit as if she can win him over like that, smiling up at him through her eyelashes. 

Arthur says, “I don’t actually run a sex club.” 

“But if we did, you would be our first invite,” Eames tells her gallantly. 

Mal laughs like she thinks they are delightful. “Play coy, but I know your secret, you two naughty boys.” Then she kisses both of their cheeks and practically floats away. 

Arthur says, “No, seriously, what is it about me that makes people so willing to believe I’m running a secret sex club?” 

“I already told you, it’s your feral sexuality,” says Eames. 

“Did you know that Yusuf thinks we have a whole sexual code that we talk in?” 

“We do have a whole sexual code that we talk in,” says Eames. 

“Eames, you making every single thing you say to me a double entendre does not count as a sexual code.” 

“I think that’s actually the textbook definition of ‘sexual code,’” says Eames. 

And then Mal shouts, “Please welcome our contestants!” 

And Arthur says, “I’m not sure I understand why no one’s given me any alcohol yet.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I put out a request on Tumblr for suggestions for challenges for this show. Thanks to carla156 for this suggestion!

Arthur thought it was going to be some sort of dreadful cocktail party mingling but instead Mal has the three judges sit in chairs and has the contestants ask them questions like it’s a press conference. Eames sits in the middle, and Arthur’s both relieved that he doesn’t have to sit next to Alec and annoyed that Eames does. 

The contestants are mostly pushy and loud and smarmy, because apparently they think that’s what you need to be to make an impression on reality television. An alarming number of them (which to Arthur would be “any number greater than zero”) have fedoras, and every time a contestant wearing a fedora asks a question, Alec does this thing where he points and winks at them like it’s actually impressive and good that they both share the same terrible fashion sense. One of the contestants says something about how he went out and got a bespoke suit after reading in an interview that Arthur said bespoke suits were his favorite luxury and Arthur isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do in reaction to that and refuses to do any kind of pointing-and-winking thing so instead he says, “Oh,” and the contestant looks like he finds Arthur incredibly disappointing. 

There is, of course, a question about the sex club, and Alec leaps in to say how offended he is that he’s never been invited to this sex club, and Eames says, sounding lazy, with a hand dramatically and possessively on Arthur’s knee, “If we were running a sex club, do you think we’d invite any of you lot?” and manages to make it sound eccentrically charming that he and Arthur run an exclusionary orgy. 

One of the contestants asks them about their favorite room. Alec talks at great length about a project he did for a poor woman who’d lost her entire family in a freak accident in Alaska involving bears and rum. Arthur can’t really follow the story but there is hardly a dry eye in the house. Arthur stares out at the sniffling contestants, disbelieving, and is relieved to see at least one of them, a small, pixie-ish girl with dark hair and a dramatic scarf, looks as dubious about the whole thing as Arthur feels. 

Eames says his favorite room is the gallery in their front room where he is building his collection of random oddities he can’t live without. 

And Arthur, without thinking, says his favorite room is their bedroom. And normally he wouldn’t say something like that, because their bedroom is theirs and private and he’s not sure why he’s brought it up, except, well, it _is_ his favorite room. 

Alec says, “You mean your sex dungeon?” and winks at the crowd and all of his fedora-clad cult members copy Alec’s uproarious laugh. 

Arthur says sharply, “No, the sex dungeon is for the orgies. Our bedroom is just for us,” and that earns him a few _aww_ s from the crowd, who apparently thinks not having their bedroom be part of his illicit sex club is the height of romance. 

A contestant asks an elaborate question with a long introduction in which she explains everything she hopes to learn from the celebrity judges. She is full of lavish praise for Alec’s ability to capture the true emotion of a room and Eames’s ability to tell a love story with fabric and furniture, and then she throws in, “And, of course, I hope to learn more from Arthur about the housing market,” which makes Arthur want to kill himself over how boring he is. But then she ends with, “I would like to know what all of you hope to learn from us.” 

The crowd _oooh_ s as if she has just asked the most fascinating question in the history of time. 

Alec makes a little _oof_ sound, like he, too, is actually physically floored by the brilliance of this question. “Wow,” he says. “Tough question. I don’t know. I think what I would say is that I am hoping to learn what makes each and every one of you special and amazing. Yes. I am looking very forward to discovering that.” 

Arthur wonders how Eames was ever able to fuck Alec without gagging. He must have told Alec not to speak. 

Eames says, “I am hoping to be able to steal all of the very best ideas you have and use them for my own glory,” and gets his usual laugh. 

Arthur thinks how Eames is able to do that and the headline tomorrow won’t be _Eames is a terrible idea-stealer!_ because everyone understands when Eames makes a joke. Meanwhile Arthur’s Wikipedia entry says he runs a sex club and that hasn’t been deleted yet because there’s disagreement over whether it’s a verified fact. 

Arthur looks at every contestant looking expectantly back at him and he says, “I’m hoping to learn more about design. I know I don’t know much about it, but I’ve always thought what Eames does is fantastic and amazing and I would like to know more.” 

The contestants look pleased with his answer and Arthur glances at Eames to find him beaming at him with his kid-on-Christmas-morning look. 

“One second,” Eames says into his microphone and then lifts up his hand as if it will be an adequate shield when he ducks forward and kisses the corner of Arthur’s mouth. 

“Stop it,” Arthur mumbles, embarrassed, tips of his ears pink, but also secretly pleased because sometimes it really is nice when Eames does stuff like that, regardless of who’s watching, like he can’t help it. 

And the contestants, anyway, seem to love it. 

“Now, now, before we get too far off-track,” says Mal, leaping to the stage, “it’s time for us to give you your first challenge. Alec’s going to do us the honor of reading this one. Let’s give everyone a makeup check and then get the cameras into place.” 

The contestants all break out into a flurry of excited conversation. Alec turns to Arthur and Eames, brandishing dramatically the envelope Mal has handed him. 

“Well?” he asks. “Do you want a preview of their task?” 

“Aren’t we just going to find out what it is in a couple of minutes?” Arthur points out. 

“Well, yes,” says Alec. “Or we could find out now and torture them with our secret knowledge.” Alec does that eyebrow waggling thing he does. It really isn’t at all like Eames’s eyebrow waggling, Arthur decides. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Artie? Hey, Eames, I’ve been meaning to ask you: what do you call Arthur?” 

Eames blinks at Alec. “What do I call him?” he asks blankly. 

“Yes, Arthur won’t tell me what his friends call him. He plays his cards close to his vest, does your Arthur.” 

Arthur doesn’t like the way Alec sounds when he says _your Arthur_. 

Apparently neither does Eames because he says, “He’s his own Arthur. And we call him Rumpelstiltskin, his friends and I.” 

“It’s my middle name,” Arthur adds. 

Alec looks between them as if he doesn’t know to do with them. 

A makeup artist shows up and starts fussing, which calls a halt to any further conversation. And then there is a consultation over the angle of Alec’s hat and the shadows it’s casting on his face and Eames leans forward and murmurs in Arthur’s ear, “I don’t know how anyone can’t find you hilarious.” 

Arthur says, “Did you understand that story Alec told? Did the bears drink the rum? How did the rum come into it? Or was it that the rum killed the people and then the bears ate the people? The story involved bears and rum, right?” 

Eames laughs and laughs, not Alec’s overdramatic laugh that Arthur feels is nothing but mocking him, but a genuine helpless laugh with a little bit of snorting in it, and Arthur smiles and says, “You have the worst fucking taste in men.” 

“I know. Is our bedroom really your favorite room?” 

“Did you not know that?” 

“I thought it was your office. You’re always in your office when I come home from being out. I never find you in our bedroom.” 

“Because it’s our bedroom,” Arthur says. “I go there with you. The office is mine, the bedroom is ours. It would be weird for me to sit around the bedroom while you’re out. It’s a room for both of us. I’d just miss you.” 

Eames is giving him this soft fond look. “You’re astonishingly sentimental, you know. In addition to being hilarious.” 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” says Arthur. “No one wants a sentimental orgy-master.” 

“Words to live by,” says Eames. 

Yusuf comes over to them and says, “I don’t want to interrupt—”

“We’re not having a sex code conversation,” Arthur tells him. 

“Although we were talking about orgies,” Eames adds, unhelpfully. 

Yusuf holds his hands up. “Look, I don’t want to know about you guys and all your kinky sex games, I just want to say that you’ve got to go stand over there next to Alec.” Yusuf gestures. 

Alec has now moved to the opposite side of the room. They are shifting the backdrop of the Next Big Thing logo into place behind him. 

“Why do we have to go over there?” Eames asks. “We were all set up over here.”

“It has to do with the lighting.” Yusuf shrugs and walks away. 

“It has to do with his fucking hat,” says Arthur, as they stand and start to walk across the room. “Does he wear it in bed?” 

“Darling, do you think I’d fuck some idiot who refused to take his hat off?” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “Kind of.” 

“You wound me,” says Eames. 

A contestant suddenly leaps toward them. “Can I just say—”

“No talking!” barks Mal out of nowhere, jumping in between them and the contestant. “No fraternizing between the judges and the contestants.” She glares at Eames and Arthur as if they were responsible for the faux pas. 

The contestant slinks away while Mal is still glaring. 

Arthur and Eames reach Alec. He is standing very still, his head tilted at a very particular angle. Probably it’ll look jaunty and rakish on screen but at the moment it looks like he needs a chiropractor. 

“Hello,” he says, smiling at them easily, like it’s totally normal to be frozen into a pose like that. 

“Why don’t you just take the hat off?” Arthur asks. 

Alec looks appalled. “This is my signature hat. I _never_ take this hat off.” 

Arthur looks pointedly at Eames, who avoids his gaze and rubs at the back of his neck and says, “What’s with all the rain we’ve had lately, eh?” 

“Huh?” Alec says, not quite looking at Eames because he can’t turn his head enough to see him. 

“Quiet, quiet, quiet!” shouts Mal, and everyone immediately obeys. And then she gestures very dramatically to Alec, like they are in a ballet or something, and then she drops away so she won’t be in the shot. 

Alec waves his envelope around and grins and says, “I have here your first challenge. And we may have peeked at it a little bit, right, boys?” Alec waves his hand to encompass Arthur and Eames, since he can’t really turn his head. 

“No,” says Arthur, because he’s decided he just lives to contradict Alec. “We didn’t.” 

Alec gives him a stony look. The contestants look mainly confused. Except for Small Pixie Girl, who grins and gives Arthur a thumbs-up. 

“Moving on,” says Eames. “Open the envelope, Alec.” 

Alec takes _forever_ to open the envelope. He makes a thousand terrible jokes as he tries to rip it as carefully as possible while maintaining his pose. Arthur thinks Alec should be fired from this show based entirely on his apparent inability to just open a fucking envelope. 

Eames says, “The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts.” And then, “Willy Wonka said that.” 

“Oscar Wilde said that,” says Arthur. 

Eames turns and gives him a genuine look of amazement. “Are you serious?” 

Arthur is startled at this reaction. “Yes?” 

“Willy Wonka stole that? My entire childhood is a lie,” says Eames mournfully. 

Alec says, “Aha! The envelope is open.” 

“Stupid bloody Willy Wonka,” mutters Eames. 

Alec gives Eames a glare. Then he reads very dramatically. “Your task this week is to design…” Long dramatic pause. Very long. Ridiculously long. 

Eames says, “Oscar Wilde is turning over in his grave.” 

Alec glares again and bites out, “Design a coffee shop. There. Go.” Alec lowers the envelope and says to Eames, “You ruined my dramatic moment. You make a habit of that.” 

He sounds oddly furious, and Eames blinks and takes a step back in evident surprise, as Alec storms off. 

“What’s that about?” Arthur asks. 

“I have no idea,” says Eames. 

Arthur pauses and looks at Eames and inquires innocently, “Good break-up you two had, was it?”


	10. Chapter 10

Arthur is in the squashy chair in his office making a list, his laptop cradled in his lap. 

Eames says, “Knock knock,” and pokes his head in. “I’m making chocolate cake.” 

“Mmm,” Arthur says, frowning at the website he’s reading. 

“Actually, as we both know, I’m mainly making chocolate cake _batter._ ” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees, and makes a notation on his notebook. 

“Okay, what are you doing?” 

“I’m working,” Arthur says, because isn’t that obvious? 

“Right, but not usual working because you didn’t even tell me that I shouldn’t eat cake batter because of how much you don’t want me to enjoy my life.” 

“Bacteria, Eames,” Arthur says. “You shouldn’t eat cake batter because of bacteria.” Eames is looking over his shoulder now and Arthur wishes he could hunch over his laptop to block the view without being painfully obvious about it. 

Eames says, “What’s this? Are you researching coffee shops?” 

“I’m…” Well, it’s too late now, Arthur can’t think up a single plausible lie. “Yes. I’m researching coffee shops. It’s the responsible thing to do, isn’t it? I want to make sure I judge them fairly.” 

“I applaud your thoroughness,” says Eames, “you know that. But I think mainly the only thing you have to know to judge them is what you like in a coffee shop.” 

“But that can’t be right. They don’t know anything about me. It would be unfair to make them please my personal taste. There has to be a more objective aesthetic that they’re seeking to achieve. Hence: what makes a successful coffee shop.” Arthur gestures to his laptop. 

Eames straightens, leaning against the window behind him. “And what have you learned?” 

“Well, a lot depends on the coffee, the pastries, the service, stuff like that. None of which any of the contestants will have any control over. I guess mainly what the coffee shop design has to do is be welcoming. You want to urge people to stay, right? You don’t want them to ever leave. But I still have no idea how that would translate into the décor.” 

“I’ll tell you,” Eames says, smiling. “Your ideal coffee shop would be full of lots of these squashy chairs. Not too bright so there wouldn’t be a glare on your laptop. Dark colors that make you think of coffee and chocolate. And lots of gay porn up all over the place because of what a filthy mind you have.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “And you were doing so well, too.” 

Eames pushes off from the window and says, “You’re not the one being judged tomorrow. You’re doing the judging. You’ll be spectacular. In the meantime, come and help me eat the cake batter I’m going to make.”

“We have to bake it,” Arthur says. “I’m not starting off our judging experience with food poisoning.” 

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Artie?” says Eames. 

Arthur swats at him with his notebook. 

***

“Everyone needs to kiss and make up,” Mal says to her three celebrity judges. 

Arthur hadn’t realized they’d been fighting. Arthur had just been enjoying the silence. But now he sees that the silence is because Alec is sulking in a corner of the room. 

Eames glances up from the design proposal he’s working on while they wait, saying to Mal, “Arthur and I aren’t quarrelling.” 

“Not you and Arthur,” fumes Mal. “You and Arthur and Alec. Alec, my sweet, Eames did not steal the drama of your moment. We watched it back and it’s still very dramatic. So he did not steal it, and he did not meant to steal it. Did you, Eames?” Mal asks it with enough steel in her tone that Eames shakes his head hastily. 

“I did not mean to steal your drama. Sorry. I was very torn up over the whole Willy Wonka thing.” 

Alec doesn’t look appeased. Alec frowns at them. 

Then Mal says, “Arthur, you apologize, too.” 

Arthur is taken aback. “What, me? For what?” 

“Not keeping Eames in line.” 

Arthur almost laughs. “Who told you I could keep Eames in line?” 

Mal narrows her eyes and then storms out of the room, muttering in French under her breath. 

Eames says, “Cobb’s going to kill you for ruining his chances, darling.” 

“What is your problem?” Alec demands. 

Arthur thinks he’s talking to Eames but when he looks up he’s glowering at Arthur. Arthur says, caught off-guard, “What?” 

“I’ve tried to be nice, I’ve tried to make friends, but it’s true what they say about you, isn’t it?” 

“About me?” says Arthur, bewildered. “What do they say about me?” 

“Alec, that’s enough,” Eames cuts in sharply. 

Alec says to Arthur, “You’re taking your role a little too seriously, okay? Grow up. What’s a few mediocre fucks between friends?” 

“What role?” says Arthur. 

“This whole couple-for-the-camera idea is marketing genius, I’ll give you that. Especially considering _I came up with it_.” Alec is talking to Eames now. “But did I pitch a fit when you threw me over to have your headline-grabbing affair with him instead? No, I stayed in the background and I stayed quiet, didn’t I? But I’d appreciate it if you could drop the act when it’s just the three of us because it’s just insulting. We’re all professionals, let’s be professional about it.” 

Eames says, “It isn’t some kind of publicity stunt.” 

Alec laughs, and Arthur gets the feeling it’s the first real laugh he’s ever heard out of Alec. “Okay.” 

“It’s not,” Arthur snaps. 

“Stop being so offended,” says Alec. “I’m telling you, I think it’s brilliant. I mean, brilliant for _you_ , definitely. A bit of a hardship for Eames because he’s got to put up with your frigid ass, but you probably couldn’t do better than—”

Arthur’s aware he’s being insulted and probably ought to have some kind of reaction to that but the only reaction he ends up having is a flinch when Eames shoves Alec up against the wall. The action knocks the hat off of Alec’s head and it’s almost more shocking than the actual violence. In fact, it kind of drives home to Arthur how ridiculous this is. So Alec thinks they have a fake relationship. Who cares? They don’t. 

Arthur picks up Alec’s hat and says to Eames, “It’s fine. Let him go.” 

“He—” begins Eames, as if Arthur needs to have this explained to him. 

“Let him go, Eames. I’ve got this. Let’s go for a walk.” 

“A walk?” Eames says, looking at Arthur as if he can’t believe him. 

Arthur nods and gestures toward the door. “Go ahead. I’ll be right there.” 

Eames narrows his eyes. 

Arthur says flatly, “Go.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames, but then lets Alec go and stalks out of the room. 

Arthur offers Alec his hat. 

Alec regards him suspiciously for a moment, then takes it and places it back on his head. 

“We don’t have to be friends,” Arthur says. “We just have to do our jobs. Go find your own publicity stunt, Eames didn’t want to be yours.” 

Alec says, “What the fuck is it about you? He was hung up on you the whole time.” 

Arthur says, “Probably the sex would have been better than mediocre if you’d relaxed enough to take off your hat.”


	11. Chapter 11

Arthur says calmly, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Eames is ranting and raving and walking in cris-crossing lines all around Arthur because of the surfeit of angry energy running through his veins. “Yes, it matters!” 

“I’m telling you it doesn’t. So he thinks we’re not real. Who the fuck cares? I was under the impression we were together because we like each other, not because of what anybody else thinks about us.” 

“Oh, that, who cares about that?” says Eames. “I don’t care what anybody thinks about that, I don’t care if they think we’ve got a sex dungeon or if they think we sleep on opposite sides of the house and never even talk.” 

Arthur is confused. “Then what are you all upset about?” 

“I care what people think about you. I hate this idea that I could do so much better than you. I hate the idea that you’re cold and uptight and poor Eames, he must fall all over himself trying to get a shred of affection from you. That’s not how you are. That’s not how you are _at all_. I hate when people say that about you.” 

Arthur is amazed by this. “Eames. Do you think it’s anything that I haven’t heard from people a hundred times before? A thousand times before?” 

“Fuck,” says Eames, and suddenly backs him against the wall and kisses him hard. 

Arthur would point out that they’re in the middle of a hallway and anyone could walk by at any time but there’s a desperation to Eames’s kiss that makes him reluctant to push him away. So he kisses back until Eames ends the kiss.

Eames draws back and says, “I don’t understand what was wrong with every person who met you before me.” 

“They weren’t you,” Arthur points out simply. 

“There’s a part of me that longs to go back in time and try to make them all see what I see, and then there’s a part of me that thinks how lovely it is that I get you all to myself,” says Eames. 

Arthur smiles. Arthur smiles because sometimes he thinks if he doesn’t smile, he might cry. “It doesn’t matter, okay?” Arthur promises him, brushing at his hair. “I really don’t care, and you shouldn’t, either. He can say whatever he wants. I go home and I have you and you love me.”

“I love you,” Eames agrees. 

“So I don’t care what anybody else thinks. I care what you think.” 

“He does keep the hat on,” Eames says after a moment. “It’s annoying.” 

Arthur chuckles and gives Eames a quick kiss. “Go find Mal and see how much longer until this filming starts.”

“And what are you doing in the meantime?” Eames asks suspiciously. 

“Nothing with Alec. I’m going to find a restroom and then I’m going to find you.” 

Eames still looks suspicious. 

“Eames,” says Arthur, exasperated, “if I wanted to go beat up Alec, I’d just go beat up Alec.” 

“True,” Eames allows. “Okay. Fine. Come find me.” Eames brushes his lips with another kiss. 

Arthur watches him walk off and goes in the opposite direction. He has no idea where the restroom might be and the studio is a warren of hallways and finally he has enough. He feels like the area he’s in is deserted enough and he leans against the wall and lets himself slide down it and presses his face against his knees and closes his eyes and breathes, in and out, in and out. 

It is _so fucking stupid_ , he thinks, to care, in the slightest, what anyone says about him. What he told Eames is true: It shouldn’t matter. He lives in a beautiful house with a fantastic man who loves him a lot. He knows that Eames loves him, and maybe he doesn’t really understand how or why, but Eames definitely loves him. Eames _chose_ him. Eames had Alec, Eames had any number of other, more charming, more likeable people, and Eames chose him, and that means something and it’s so stupid to care anymore what anyone else says. 

Arthur is never going to be popular and Arthur doesn’t need to be. That’s what he’s told himself all his life. Whatever gets encoded into other people’s DNA to make them friendly and gregarious—whatever people like Eames have—skipped Arthur, and that’s fine, it’s absolutely _fine_ , he doesn’t need to be the most popular person in the room, he’s fine without that. He’s always been fine without it, he’s gone his whole life being fine without it. He doesn’t need people to like him. He’s smart and he’s successful and he’s good at lots of things and being good at making people like you is overrated. 

He needs one person to like him, and that’s Eames, and Eames does like him. In fact, Eames is the most popular person Arthur has ever known and Eames _loves_ him. So it’s kind of annoying that, in the face of that astonishing wonder, he can still be hurt by someone stupid like Alec thinking that Eames could do so much better than him, thinking that Eames is condemned to this terrible, passionless, stiff relationship because he’s dating Arthur. Arthur who is apparently totally believable as the manager of an exclusive sex club but not at all believable as an object of sexual attraction himself. 

And Arthur knows it isn’t just Alec, knows that everyone who works on _Love It or List It_ gossips and speculates about why Eames who could have anyone would choose Arthur, Arthur of all people. The fans ship them, yes, it’s true, but anyone who knows them both personally finds the idea of them as a couple bewildering, and Arthur wishes that didn’t bother him as much as it does. He wishes he didn’t know what they say about him: Arthur has no sense of humor and is terrible at conversation and is harsh and demanding and sarcastic and constantly annoyed and impatient. Frankly Arthur really doesn’t blame them for wondering what Eames sees in him. Arthur gets it. But it doesn’t matter. Eames has his reasons and Eames really does love him and Arthur _doesn’t care_ what Alec Hart or anyone else thinks, he really doesn’t—

“Are you okay?” asks a voice. 

Arthur answers without looking up or opening his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says between his teeth. “Just having a little panic attack. Nothing major.” 

“Okay,” says the voice uncertainly. 

Arthur breathes in and out, in and out, and looks up. It’s Small Pixie Girl, sticking her head out of a doorway Arthur hadn’t noticed in the hallway, regarding him with a worried look. “I’m fine,” Arthur assures her, and pushes himself up. “Look, I’m standing and everything.” 

“You’ve got low standards,” says Small Pixie Girl. 

Which startles a laugh out of Arthur. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Most days, surprisingly low standards. But don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation for being ruthlessly demanding.” 

“It’s because of the fabrics you were,” says Small Pixie Girl. “You don’t invite touching.” 

“I suppose I should wear more scarves,” remarks Arthur, eyeing Small Pixie Girl’s scarf of the day. 

Small Pixie Girl grins. “No, it wouldn’t suit you. But Eames should try it.” 

Arthur chuckles. “I’ll suggest it to him. We’re not supposed to be fraternizing, in Mal’s words, so I should go.” 

“Yeah. I know. But are you okay? I mean, I don’t want to bother you, but, you know, yeah.” 

“Very eloquent,” says Arthur. 

“Shut up,” says Small Pixie Girl, but she’s smiling. 

“I get them,” Arthur says. “From time to time. I’m fine. Really.” 

“Well. Your secret’s safe with me,” says Small Pixie Girl. 

And Arthur would leave except that it occurs to him that maybe Small Pixie Girl has the wrong idea about all of this. He hesitates, then says, “It isn’t about Eames, you know. I mean, Eames is great. Eames makes me very happy. I wouldn’t want you to think…” 

“Sure,” says Small Pixie Girl. 

“The thing is, I used to panic that I’d never be happy. And now I have everything I could ever want, and I panic about losing it.” Arthur wonders why he would tell her that, why he feels the need to explain. 

“Which is worse?” asks Small Pixie Girl, looking nothing but frankly curious. 

Arthur considers. “I think the former.”

“Then I think you’re doing okay,” announces Small Pixie Girl, and disappears through the door. 

And, actually, that makes Arthur feel better.


	12. Chapter 12

Eames says, “Where have you been?” when he finally stumbles upon the judges’ room again. 

“Lost,” says Arthur, which is half of the truth. “This place could use some signage.” 

“Can we get going now?” demands Alec. “We’ve been standing around long enough.” He sweeps his way out of the room. 

Mal says, “That does not seem as if kissing and making up happened.” 

“Well spotted,” says Eames. 

“It doesn’t matter,” says Arthur, and he’s so tired of saying how much things don’t matter. “Can we just get this judging over with?” 

“Banter,” Mal commands them. “This show needs chemistry. If Monsieur Hart is going to pout, then you two need to work to be even more dazzling.” 

“That’s me and Arthur,” says Eames brightly. “Dazzling.” 

Mal looks dubious. She goes off muttering in French again. 

Eames turns to Arthur and says quizzically, “You okay?” 

Arthur nods. “Tired. I was like a mouse in a maze in this place.” 

“Ignore Alec, right?” says Eames, and ducks his head to kiss underneath Arthur’s jaw. It’s a quick kiss but it’s an intimate spot and it relaxes Arthur more than a kiss to his mouth would have done. It’s the sort of kiss that you’d never give someone else for show because it wouldn’t occur to you, not really. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “Let’s go.” 

The silver lining of panicking over everyone being annoying and stupid is that Arthur pretty much doesn’t have the headspace to panic over the judging. 

The first coffee shop looks like a hospital. It’s so hospital-like that Arthur pauses in the doorway in confusion. 

The contestant is explaining the shade of paint on the wall, the type of tile on the floor. Eames and Alec are listening raptly. 

Arthur interrupts to say, “Sorry, but isn’t it supposed to be a coffee shop?” 

The contestant says, “It is a coffee shop.” 

Arthur looks around him, wondering if he’s hallucinating. “That’s a hospital bed.” He points. “In fact, there are several hospital beds here.” 

“They are hospital beds repurposed as couches,” the contestant tells him. 

“Why would you want to sit on a hospital bed unless you were in the hospital?” asks Arthur. 

“He’s making a statement,” Alec bites out at Arthur, like Arthur is being incredibly stupid for not getting this. 

Arthur grits his teeth and ignores him and sits on one of the hospital-bed-couches. It is incredibly uncomfortable. Because it’s a _hospital bed_. 

“As I was saying,” the contestant says. 

“No,” Arthur says. “Sorry. I have to interrupt again. Have you ever been in a hospital? As a patient?” 

“No,” says the contestant. “I had to use my imagination a bit to—”

“It’s just…Why would you want to turn a hospital bed into a couch? They’re not exactly known for comfort.” Arthur doesn’t know much about design but he does know that surely furniture is meant to be comfortable. Especially a couch. 

“It’s a metaphor,” the contestant spits out at him, as if he’s lost patience with him. 

“A metaphor for what?” asks Arthur, genuinely confused. 

“What people do in coffee shops.” 

Arthur glances at Eames. Eames is biting his lip and looking up the ceiling and seems like he is trying very hard not to laugh. Arthur turns back to the contestant and says, “Drink coffee?” because he’s not following. 

“No,” says the contestant. “They waste time. They waste _life_. They sit in coffee shops and their lives tick by and they move closer to _death_.” 

Arthur stares at the contestant. 

“Cheerful,” remarks Eames. 

“Compelling,” says Alec. He is wearing his sincere scrunch-face. “You are telling a moving story with this design. If I may?” Alec lifts his hand up. 

Arthur isn’t sure what he plans to do with the uplifted hand. 

The contestant nods and Alec rests his hand over the contestant’s heart and says, “I feel this room _here_.” 

“Is it indigestion?” asks Arthur, earning him a glare from both the contestant and Alec. 

“So this constant beeping noise in the background,” begins Eames. 

“Literally the soundtrack of a heartbeat, beating you closer to death,” says the contestant rapturously. 

Alec shakes his head as if overcome by the marvel of this. 

Eames says, “Usually coffee shops just play, like, Mumford and Sons.” 

***

Arthur thinks that it can’t really go downhill from the hospital coffee shop, but it doesn’t get much better. At least, not from his perspective. Alec seems to like several of the designs, and Eames seems to like a few himself, but Arthur doesn’t like any of them. He is completely bewildered. 

Most of the designs are sleek and modern, all clear plastic chairs and neon lacquered tables, things of that sort. The designers talk about the sterility of modern life, which apparently means no one can have cushions anymore, as far as Arthur can tell. 

One of the contestants goes on at length about how his coffee shop is designed to force people into talking to each other, so that all of the chairs are set up in one big circle and people have to share armrests and table space and even negotiate for cup holders. Arthur takes one look at it and says, “But you go to a coffee shop to get away from other people,” and the contestant and Alec both give him a sad look over how little Arthur understands _life_. 

They look at a design that the contestant says is coffee-shop-as-modern-government, which apparently means that everyone must sit on too tall wooden chairs at spindly desks with old green desk lamps over them. Arthur has to clamber up to try one of the chairs, and Alec says to the contestant, “That won’t be a problem for a person of normal height,” and the contestant nods as if Alec has made a good point and Eames says, “Alec, this lamp reminds me of your balding head.” Arthur, meanwhile, is discovering how he has to hunch forward to reach the table and says, “I feel like Bartleby the Scrivener.” Alec does his over-enthusiastic laugh thing and says to the contestant, “We’re going to edit out the parts where he doesn’t make sense.” Eames says, “Look at this tiny pen. I am reminded of other parts of you, Alec.” 

Another design is coffee-shop-as-cocktail-party. So it has no chairs at all and only a few tables. Apparently everyone is supposed to pick up their coffees and mingle. 

“Don’t we all have more fun at cocktail parties than coffee shops?” the contestant asks, laughing merrily. 

No, thinks Arthur, no, we definitely don’t. What he says out loud is: “Can I ask why you didn’t do a coffee shop that was just, you know, a coffee shop?” 

The contestant and Alec give him identical aghast looks. 

All in all, Arthur is exhausted. He started the whole thing exhausted and his mood hasn’t improved and he just wants to go home and have Eames tell him some stupid, ridiculous story while he curls up on his chest and stops thinking. Maybe they’ll watch that movie Eames has been going on about. 

And then, finally, they walk into a coffee shop that looks exactly like a coffee shop. It’s filled with squashy armchairs set next to perfect-height end-tables, with low, long coffee tables in front of them. There are clusters for conversation but separated ones for more serious work. The colors aren’t dark the way Eames had said he would do, they’re actually cool, crisp shades of light gray, but Arthur doesn’t care because every single chair looks like it’s covered in velvet or silk or something equally sinful. 

Arthur sinks into one of the chairs immediately and says gleefully, “Oh, my God, is this fleece?” It’s an entire fleece chair. Arthur is in love. Arthur wants to know why Eames has never designed a fleece chair for him.

Eames is watching him in amusement. Eames says, “You’re going to want a fleece chair, aren’t you?” 

“Eames, it’s _fleece_. This is the coziest chair in the entire world. Try it.” Arthur gets out of the chair and urges Eames into it. 

“What sort of coffee shop is this?” Alec asks the contestant politely.

Arthur glances over at the contestant, who he hadn’t even noticed before. It’s Small Pixie Girl. Arthur beams at her, because he can’t help it, he is delighted with this design. 

Small Pixie Girl says to Alec, “It’s a coffee shop sort of coffee shop.” 

Alec looks confused by her. “But what’s it represent?” 

“A coffee shop,” says Small Pixie Girl. 

“It’s a _coffee shop_ ,” Arthur says in exasperation. “Try the fleece chair. You’ll get it if you try the fleece chair. Eames, get out of the chair.” 

Alec tries out the chair, looking dubious the whole time. “It is, indeed, fleece,” he announces. 

“That’s all you have to say about the chair?” says Arthur in disbelief. 

Alec glares at him. “It’s a chair, and it’s soft. What more do you want?” 

“I want to _marry_ this chair,” Arthur says. “This chair is _wonderful_.” 

“I am very jealous,” Eames says to Small Pixie Girl. “He never says anything so incredibly enthusiastic about me.” 

Small Pixie Girl grins at Eames and says, “I don’t believe that for a second,” and turns the grin on Arthur. 

Arthur tries not to blush. 

Alec says, “But what’s the point of the chair? I don’t understand.” 

“Arthur’s reaction is exactly what I was going for,” Small Pixie Girl says. “I want people to feel like they can come into my coffee shop and just curl up in here for hours. I wanted everything to look so rich and luxurious that you just had to touch, and then once you touched you had to sit, and then maybe you would never want to leave.” 

“Isn’t that the opposite of what a business wants?” asks Alec pointedly. 

“Not a coffee shop,” says Small Pixie Girl. “Mostly a coffee shop is about the coffee, right? But once you get your cup of coffee, if you hang around, then hey, you might order a second cup. The job of the décor in a coffee shop is to get you to stay.” 

“Is this couch made of feather boas?” asks Arthur in delight. 

Arthur never wants to leave Small Pixie Girl’s coffee shop. He makes her explain the covering on every single chair, and he tries all of them out. Eames follows and makes notes on which ones Arthur likes best. 

“Is this for the sex dungeon?” asks Small Pixie Girl, but she’s grinning about it and Arthur doesn’t even mind talking about the sex dungeon. 

“Fuck the sex dungeon, we’re re-doing my office,” says Arthur. 

“But, really,” Eames says, “there’s very little difference between the sex dungeon and Arthur’s office. You could say that his office is the sex dungeon, in fact.”

“Well,” says Small Pixie Girl, “that makes sense, seeing as how he _is_ the management.” 

“This is a cashmere couch,” Arthur says. “I’m ignoring all of you because I’m on a cashmere couch at the moment.” 

“Avoid cashmere in the sex dungeon,” Small Pixie Girl tells Eames, “it could get messy.” 

“You should see our dry cleaning bill,” says Eames. 

“Can we get going?” asks Alec impatiently. 

Arthur wants to say no, because he doesn’t want to leave this wonderful place for the next coffee shop whose theme is probably going to be torture chamber or maybe morgue or cemetery. 

But Mal says, “If we don’t get the filming done today, you have to come back tomorrow,” and Arthur definitely doesn’t want to come back tomorrow. 

So he looks at Small Pixie Girl and says, “We have to go. But this was amazing. What’s your name?” 

“Ariadne,” says Small Pixie Girl. 

“Ariadne,” Arthur repeats as he gets up off the couch. “I like your coffee shop. May I?” He lifts up his hand dramatically. 

Ariadne looks like she doesn’t know what to make of this gesture. “Um, sure?” she says. 

He lays it very carefully over Ariadne’s heart. “I feel this room _here_ ,” says Arthur. 

Eames almost collapses with laughter. 

Alec stalks out of the room. 

Ariadne says, sounding bemused, “Okay.” 

“Come along, darling,” Eames says, and takes Arthur’s hand. “You’re feeling better,” he murmurs, as they leave. “This design perked you up.” 

“Because it wasn’t _depressing_ ,” Arthur says. 

“I’m going to buy you a million fleece chairs and feather boa couches and cashmere chaises longues, if they make you smile like this,” says Eames, and kisses one of Arthur’s dimples. 

***

“Let’s get this voting over with,” Alec says when they’ve seen all the designs. “Clearly you’re voting for Ariadne’s because you want to get into her pants.”

“No, I’m voting for Ariadne because she designed an actual _coffee shop_ ,” says Arthur. 

“But she didn’t have anything to _say_ ,” complains Alec. “Her room didn’t say anything.” 

“It said, ‘Come in, have some coffee, stay a while,’ which was what it was supposed to say, because it’s a _coffee shop_.” 

“Really, though, a feather boa couch?” Alec wrinkles her nose. “It’s thoroughly impractical.”

“As opposed to hospital room bed couches,” says Arthur. 

“Well, at least that design was ambitious,” retorts Alec. “Who do you like, Eames?” 

“Um,” says Eames, and looks from Arthur to Alec and back again. 

Arthur says, “I have an idea.” 

“Oh, good, I was hoping you would,” says Eames, sounding relieved. 

“Let’s all rank the designs from one to twelve. The design with the lowest total number wins, the design with the highest total number is eliminated.” 

“Excellent idea,” says Eames. 

“What if there’s a tie?” asks Alec. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Arthur says, and goes to ask Mal for pieces of paper. 

In the end, there are plenty of ties in the middle of the pack, but the pick for first goes cleanly to one of the sleek modern takes. 

Eames says, “I really liked his use of color and it was a little more practical than—”

“It’s fine,” Arthur says, because it really is, because Ariadne’s design came in second in their poll and the eliminated design is the hospital room one, thank Christ, maybe Alec does have some sense after all. 

The elimination ceremony is highly emotional because Alec gets all emotional over it, voice wobbly, sincere scrunch-face in place. Arthur gets emotional over it to the extent that he thinks, _Thank fuck that’s over and we’ve got a couple of days off_. 

He and Eames tumble into the car provided by the network and Arthur says, “One down, nine to go. Did you enjoy it?”

“I thought it was interesting,” says Eames. “Some of the designs had promise.”

“And some of them were lunacy.” 

“That, too. Are you hungry? Should we order something in?” 

“I want to go home and get into bed.” 

“So we should cancel tonight’s orgy?” 

“For a change of pace,” says Arthur, “let’s have one night free of other people’s naked writhing bodies.” 

“It does get old, doesn’t it?” rejoins Eames. 

“Orgy fatigue,” says Arthur. 

“We’ll shake it up a bit and put on some porn instead,” suggests Eames. 

“Like regular people who don’t own an exclusive sex club.” 

“A walk on the wild side for us.” 

“Kinky,” agrees Arthur, and keeps a straight face up until the moment the driver drops them at their house, and then he collapses into giggles against Eames. 

“You’re never going to outrun these sex club rumors,” Eames tells him, sounding amused, clasping him close as he opens the door and swings them both through it. 

“Fuck it, I’ve decided to embrace being a sex club manager. There are worse things in the world to be.” 

“Damn straight,” says Eames. “Where’d this good mood come from? Not that I’m not delighted by it, but I was worried you’d be…not in this good mood.” 

“It’s over, we’re home, you’re going to take me to bed,” says Arthur, planting kisses along Eames’s neck. “What’s not to be in a good mood about?” 

Eames opens his mouth. 

Arthur says, “Don’t even say his name.” 

***

The wine hits Arthur hard. Mostly because he hasn’t eaten much all day and his adrenaline levels are all wonky, as Eames would say, from panic attacks and sex. He balances his wineglass on Eames’s chest carefully and says into Eames’s bicep, “It was a fucking exhausting day.” 

“Mmm,” says Eames, and Arthur feels him brush a kiss over Arthur’s head. “I’m sorry about the Alec thing.” 

“It didn’t bother me,” Arthur lies sleepily. “He’s just jealous of our awesome sex club.” 

“We don’t actually have a sex club, you know. I feel like you might need that reminder.” 

“We have a sex club,” Arthur says. “It’s very exclusive. It’s you and me and we have a lot of really good sex. In fact, we just had sex. You should pay me.” 

“Pay you?” 

“Dues. For your use of the sex club.” 

“You’re drunk,” Eames notes, sounding amused. “You’ve had, like, one glass of wine.” 

“I’m tired,” Arthur says. “And a little—don’t overreact.” Arthur props himself up on his elbows so he can see Eames and confesses gravely, “I was a little emotionally overwrought earlier.” 

“I know,” says Eames, because he probably does, because he’s a bastard who knows everything. 

Arthur lets himself collapse back against Eames. “Fucking stupid,” he mumbles.

“You’re the most delightful person I’ve ever met,” Eames tells him. “That’s what I told Alec.” 

Arthur, with great effort, picks himself up again and pries his eyes open to look at Eames. “You told him that? When? Today?”

“No. Before. He wanted to go public with whatever generous name you might give to what we were doing. He thought it would be great publicity for both of our shows. That’s what he was talking about today, his whole…tirade he went on. I didn’t want to go public. I didn’t want you to…I told him I couldn’t do it to you. I told him you were the most delightful person I’d ever met and I couldn’t hurt you like that.” 

Arthur is transfixed by this story. “And what did he say?” 

“He said that probably you were out fucking lots of smarmy handyman types because you and I had a fucked-up relationship and we deserved each other. I’m not sure he’s thrilled with how right he’s turned out to be.” 

“I didn’t fuck any handyman types. I didn’t want anyone but you. Oh, fuck, there was still wine in that glass, I forgot.” Arthur looks in dismay at Eames’s chest. “I can lick it up,” he offers. 

Eames laughs as he coaxes the wineglass out of Arthur’s hand and sets it on the nightstand. “Don’t bother. I’ve got to go take a shower anyway.” 

“Don’t go.” Arthur tries to lick the wine up as quickly as possible, so Eames will stay put. “See? That’s fine. Now you can stay and we can go to sleep.” Arthur yawns and curls up next to him.

“Not actually fine,” Eames says fondly, “but I’ll wait until you go to sleep before I shower, how’s that?” 

“Why didn’t you like Ariadne’s design?” asks Arthur. 

“I did like it.” 

“You didn’t put it first.” 

“It needed a bit more whimsy. I didn’t think she was having enough fun.” 

“She had a feather boa couch,” says Arthur. 

“And it was the most serious feather boa couch I’ve ever seen. I just felt like the room needed something.” 

“What would you have added?” 

“I think a touch of paisley.” 

“You have terrible taste,” Arthur accuses. “The room was perfect. Ariadne is my favorite.” 

“I’m jealous,” says Eames. 

“You should be. I’m going to make Ariadne the third person in the world to like me.” 

Eames’s hand, which had been stroking soothingly over Arthur’s hair, pauses. “More people than that like you.” 

“Mmm,” Arthur says noncommittally. “You, my mom, Ariadne.” 

Eames, after a second, pulls the covers up over them and says, “Fuck it, I’ll take a shower in the morning.” 

“Good,” says Arthur, and snuggles into the warmth all around him, unsure whether it’s Eames or the blanket and not really caring at this point. “Stay.” 

“Always,” says Eames.


	13. Chapter 13

Arthur isn’t sure whose idea it was to air the episodes of _Next Big Thing_ practically in real time, but what it means is there’s a break in between the filming of each episode to allow for the episode to be cut and aired. And then all of America gets to know who was eliminated, and then the next episode begins. It’s supposed to build buzz, the near-simultaneity of the whole thing. 

Arthur thought he would like the built-in downtime, but he’s not really looking forward to watching the episode. Although he’s obviously going to watch, because he needs it for research purposes, to see how to do better next time. 

Arthur is sitting on the couch in their living room with a laptop for note-taking purposes perched on his lap when Eames walks in with a gaily-wrapped box. 

“Where have you been?” Arthur asks. “You almost missed the beginning. What’s that?” 

“Viewing day present,” Eames says, and presents Arthur with the box. 

Arthur regards it in confusion. “Is this a thing we do now?” 

“Not really. But I know you agreed to do the show because of me so this is my way of saying thank you.” 

“Not necessary,” says Arthur, putting his laptop on the end table so the box can occupy the space on his lap. 

“Go ahead and open it, though, you’re going to like it,” says Eames, and sits on their coffee table to watch. 

Arthur tears into the giftwrap and opens the box and pulls out a fleece blanket trimmed in feather boas. 

“I can’t turn around a couch that quickly,” Eames explains, “but a blanket’s easy.” 

Arthur smiles at the blanket and brushes at one of the feather boas and then turns his smile onto Eames. “Thank you.” 

“Do you like it?” asks Eames, and even though he’d just been so confident Arthur would like it, Arthur knows he wants confirmation. 

“I love it.” Arthur pushes the box and the giftwrap to the floor and shakes the blanket out. “Come share it,” he says. 

Eames takes the hint and they settle under the blanket and Arthur says, “Oh, fuck, I left my laptop over there, I was going to take notes.” Arthur looks over at the laptop, which seems very far away at the moment now that Eames has hauled him over against his chest. 

“We’re recording it,” Eames reminds him, “take notes the second time through. This time through, just sit back and enjoy.” 

“Enjoy?” says Arthur skeptically. Arthur never enjoys watching anything they’re in. Arthur is always cringing over the stupid things he does on the camera. Of course Eames loves to watch their shows, because Eames always looks suave and perfect, teasingly indulgent of the Arthur who bobs awkwardly in his wake. 

“Just focus on how hot I’ll probably look,” Eames tells him. 

Arthur rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything else because then the show starts. It’s an introductory voiceover, explaining the premise of the show, and it’s got quick clips of them in action as their names are announced. Alec is making his sincere scrunch-face and resting a hand against his own chest, and Eames is gesturing at something, talking away, with a hint of a smile, and Arthur is looking at something with an expression on his face that says _what am I doing here, no one is paying me enough, take me somewhere else immediately_. 

If Arthur were taking notes, that would be the first thing he would write down: _try not to look so much like you hate everything in the universe_. But that’s a note he’s been writing to himself since childhood, so he’s not sure it’s going to change now. 

There is a long segment on each of the contestants. The hospital-room designer does his segment with a stuffed raven sitting on his shoulder. It has to do with Poe. Arthur doesn’t understand exactly what it has to do with Poe, but he does think the guy’s coffee shop design would have been better if the heartbeat soundtrack had been a Poe reference. 

Ariadne is cute in her segment. She studied architecture in Paris, she explains, but she wanted to try “something closer to pure creation and less beholden to mathematics and liability.” She grins as if her decision to not worry as much about the lives of other people makes her adorable, and she pulls it off. It’s a talent that reminds Arthur of Eames; maybe that’s why he likes her. 

“She’s sweet, your girl,” says Eames. 

“She isn’t my girl.” 

“It’s a good thing that I know your type is rugged and manly.” 

“How do you know that’s my type?” asks Arthur dryly. 

“Obviously because of how rugged and manly I am.” 

“I would say my type is talkative and ridiculous,” says Arthur. 

“That still describes me and not her,” says Eames, sounding pleased. 

“You’re, like, genuinely impossible to insult,” Arthur tells him. 

The show finally loops back around to the celebrity judges. There’s an establishing shot of Eames and Arthur and Alec all talking. It makes them look as if they are the best of friends, of course, even though it was from their awkward conversation about Alec never taking his hat off and Eames trying to babble about the weather. 

The voiceover narrator says, “The celebrity judges have been getting to know each other…” 

And there’s a cut to a clip of the three of them, seated, heads bent in conversation. Alec and Eames are both grinning easily. Arthur is wearing his usual scowl. Arthur makes a second mental note to _smile more_. 

Alec says on the screen, “Arthur won’t tell me what his friends call him.” 

Eames answers, “We call him Rumpelstiltskin.” 

“It’s my middle name,” says Arthur on the television screen, solemn and straight-faced. 

Arthur on the couch in their living room says, “I didn’t realize they were filming that.” 

“Neither did I,” says Eames, and he has his phone out. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Texting Mal to say that we need to know when we’re being filmed and not being filmed. I’m not having her make a whole storyline on the show out of whatever the fuck is going on with Alec.” 

Arthur agrees with that whole-heartedly. 

On screen the voiceover narrator says, “…and the contestants.” 

Alec re-tells his story about the bears and the rum and Arthur doesn’t understand it any better this time around. The shots are of all the contestants listening raptly. Eames says that he’s looking forward to stealing everyone’s ideas, earning himself a hearty laugh. 

“That’s been embellished,” Eames says. “They didn’t laugh that hard in real life.”

“Yes, they did,” Arthur says. 

Arthur on screen says, “The sex dungeon is for the orgies. Our bedroom is just for us.” 

“Of _course_ ,” says Arthur. “Of _course_ Mal got something about the sex dungeon is there.” 

But the line has been spliced so that it flows directly into Eames saying, “One second,” and lifting up his hand and ducking forward to kiss Arthur. Eames’s hand does nothing to block the view of the kiss, and Arthur has to admit that he is smiling really nicely in that particular shot, so at least he doesn’t look entirely like the world’s most dour individual. 

“And now,” continues the voiceover narrator, “it’s time to reveal the contestants’ first challenge.” 

There are a couple of inserted interviews of contestants saying how excited they are to be getting their first challenge, to be getting the show underway. One of them says, “It was so great getting to meet the celebrity judges. That Alec Hart is so hot, I’d wear his fedora any day.” 

“Oh, God,” says Arthur. 

“Eames is so charming,” says another contestant. “I think he’ll be the easy judge.” 

“I am easy,” muses Eames, “only not the way he thinks.” 

None of the contestants says anything about Arthur, of course. 

Alec says, “I have here your first challenge. And we may have peeked at it a little bit, right, boys?” Alec’s pose doesn’t look weird and artificial on camera. It looks as if he just happened to stand at the ideal angle for attractiveness. 

Arthur is standing stiffly next to Alec, and although they’re both well-dressed, Alec is slouching a little bit and his suit has a flyaway, casual look. Arthur thinks he looks buttoned-up in comparison, like the stern teacher you would never cross, and then he makes it worse by saying, “No. We didn’t.” 

There’s a reaction shot of Eames, eyes bright with amusement, mouth twisted in an attempt not to burst out laughing. 

“Well, that was so stupid,” Arthur says, annoyed again. “We already have a schedule of the episodes anyway. Didn’t he read the fucking dossier?” 

“Probably not, darling,” says Eames. 

“I can’t believe they left that bit in,” grumbles Arthur. 

“Moving on,” says Eames on-screen, still looking highly amused. “Open the envelope, Alec.” 

Now begins Alec’s interminable envelope-opening process. 

Arthur says, “When it’s my turn to open the envelope, I am just ripping it fucking open.” 

On screen, Eames says, “The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts.” And then he shifts closer to Arthur and murmurs, “Willy Wonka said that.” 

Arthur on the screen is frowning hard at Alec opening the envelope. He doesn’t even look at Eames when he says, “Oscar Wilde said that.” 

Eames’s reaction is just as absurd as Arthur remembers it being. His eyes widen in comical shock as he turns to stare at Arthur. “Are you serious?” 

Arthur’s eyes shift from Alec to Eames. His eyebrows are raised and he looks like he doesn’t know what to make of this. “Yes?” 

“Willy Wonka stole that?” says Eames. “My entire childhood is a lie.” 

“Aha!” exclaims Alec. “The envelope is open.” 

“Stupid bloody Willy Wonka,” mutters Eames. 

On screen, Alec glares at Eames, then clears his throat and begins to read. 

And then pauses. And pauses. And pauses. 

There are reaction shots of all the contestants waiting patiently. 

Arthur is pretty sure that the pause has been exaggerated but then again maybe not because it really did go on forever. 

Eames says on screen, “Oscar Wilde is turning over in his grave.” 

Alec glares again and then says, “Design a coffee shop.” 

And then the show immediately cuts to its first commercial break. 

Arthur says, “They left that all in. They left that entire inane exchange in.” 

“Banter,” Eames says. “That was us bantering. It’s why they hired us, isn’t it? So they left it in.” 

“Jesus Christ,” says Arthur. “My contribution to this entire episode has been the proper sourcing of quotations.” 

“And your sex dungeon, don’t forget that. Are you right about that Oscar Wilde thing?” asks Eames. “I don’t even think you’re right about that.” He has his phone out again and is tapping at it. 

“I’m right,” Arthur assures him. “There’s no need to Google it.” 

“Darling,” Eames says slowly, staring at his phone. 

Arthur draws his eyebrows together. “What? Was I wrong? I am _positive_ it’s an Oscar Wilde quote.” 

“OMG,” reads Eames, “is that true about the Willy Wonka quote coming from Oscar Wilde first? How is Arthur so smart? He knows everything.” 

“What?” says Arthur. “Who the fuck said that?” 

“Arthur is the smartest person on this network. Full points for mentioning Oscar Wilde on a reality show,” says Eames. 

“Eames, what the hell,” says Arthur, trying to grab for the phone. 

Eames holds it out of his grasp. “Can we all embrace the trend of a well-dressed man in a sharp suit being intelligent on national television? Hashtag Arthur-for-everything.” 

“Hashtag what?” says Arthur. 

“Darling, you are _trending_ ,” says Eames. Eames finally turns the phone so Arthur can see it, and there it is, under “Top Trends.” #arthur4everything

“That’s not referring to me,” says Arthur, stunned. 

Eames turns the phone back to him, reads another tweet. “Dude, does he really have a sex dungeon. How have I gone this long without this man in my life? You’re all fired for not telling me about him.” 

“Are you making these up?” Arthur demands, and succeeds in grabbing the phone. Eames has clicked on the #arthur4everything hashtag, and Arthur reads the next tweet. “I am Googling Love It or List It and what the hell, he wears these suits all the time? How is this not allowed on television? The censors let this be shown?” Arthur looks up. “I don’t get it. I’m not doing anything different. This is how I always dress. And yes, there are some very nice devoted Tumblrs but I don’t _trend_.” 

“Different audience, darling,” says Eames. He is wide-open grinning like this is fantastic. “And you don’t get to show off your Oscar Wilde knowledge on our show.” 

Arthur reads another tweet. “To everyone just discovering the sexiness of Arthur: Welcome aboard, we have good champagne and lots and lots of suit!porn.” He scrolls to another one. “Hashtag my celebrity boyfriend runs a sex club and yours doesn’t.” He scrolls to another one. “You haven’t even gotten to see him in action with Eames yet, really, you are in for such a treat.” He scrolls to another one. “Right now I am living for the expression on Arthur’s face in the opening credits. Me, too, darling. And that last bit’s all in caps,” Arthur explains, for Eames’s benefit, and puts the phone down and stares at Eames. “What the _fuck_?” he says. 

Eames says, “I am going to make us popcorn,” and clambers off the couch. 

Arthur pulls his fleece-and-feather-boa blanket up over his head and scrolls through more tweets. _RUMPLESTILTSKIN IS HIS MIDDLE NAME. COULD ARTHUR GET ANY MORE ADORABLE IF HE TRIED?_ and _The way Eames looks at Arthur makes me want to set myself on fire_ and _Gif of the night. Calling it already._ The gif is Eames leaning over to kiss Arthur. Arthur watches the gif for a long time, studying the look of unadulterated delight on his face, studying the look of amazing adoration on Eames’s, and thinks that there are advantages to having your relationship live on the Internet.


	14. Chapter 14

Arthur is a star. 

He doesn’t even know what to do with this information. He doesn’t understand what he does in the episode to cause any of it. Mainly what he does is stare at the stupid stuff coming out of the mouths of everyone around him. And people apparently _love_ it. Eames almost falls off the couch laughing at the reaction shot of Arthur’s face when Alec places his hand on the hospital-coffee-shop contestant’s chest. He spills popcorn everywhere in his amusement and Arthur is cleaning it up and so almost misses the part where he says on-screen, “But you go to a coffee shop to get away from people.”

Eames is tracking Arthur’s hashtag on Twitter and it never slows down. _Arthur likes to go to coffee shops and not talk to people. Can this man marry me? #arthur4everything_ and _lol Arthur, I am with you, why can’t we have cushions on anything anymore? #solidarity #arthur4everything_ and _OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN WAITING MY ENTIRE LIFE FOR SOMEONE TO LOOK AT ALEC HART LIKE THAT. FINALLY. THANK YOU, ARTHUR. #arthur4everything_

The shot of Arthur trying to climb on top of the really high stool in the bureaucratic coffee shop is way more lingering than it needs to be. 

Arthur says in horror, watching himself, “What am I _doing_?” and Eames says, “Showing off your arse in those trousers,” and in fact Twitter explodes into _WAS IT NECESSARY FOR ARTHUR TO START CLIMBING ON TOP OF THINGS? Actually, yes, very necessary, carry on. #arthur4everything_. 

On-screen, Arthur makes his Bartleby the Scrivener reference and Twitter devolves into _Melville, too? I’ve died and gone to heaven. WHO IS THIS MAN? #arthur4everything_ and some of Arthur’s loyal fans from before he was a trending topic on Twitter helpfully explain his high IQ and stellar grades in college and dual major. 

Meanwhile, Eames says on-screen, “Look at this tiny pen. I am reminded of you, Alec,” with a proper amount of double-entendre-ing and Arthur says, “Oh, my God,” and even Eames says, “Oh, fuck, Alec is going to kill Mal for leaving that in,” and the Internet explodes with speculation about when Eames had cause to judge the size of Alec’s metaphorical pen. 

And then they get to Ariadne’s coffee shop entry, and Arthur sinks into raptures on Ariadne’s various soft chairs and couches, and Twitter says, _OMG WTF is Arthur literally have orgasms on my screen at this moment?_

“No,” says Arthur. “Not how you use the word ‘literally.’ I am not ‘literally’ having an orgasm there. I just really like the chair.” 

Eames types away at his phone, and Arthur doesn’t notice, until Eames says, “Most retweeted tweet in my history.” 

“What?” says Arthur and finds Eames’s tweet. _Arthur says he doesn’t literally want to have sex with the fleece chair, he just really likes it._

“What are you doing?” Arthur asks, a little horrified over the tweet. 

“I’m trying to use your celebrity, darling,” says Eames. “Look at me, relegated to the background. This is appalling. Finally, I can take advantage of the man I’m sleeping with to give my career a bump.” 

“I don’t understand,” Arthur says dazedly, because he _doesn’t_. 

On-screen, Eames is telling Ariadne that the sex dungeon is Arthur’s office, and Twitter is saying _THESE TWO_ and _But wait, is there really a sex dungeon? Wikipedia’s unclear_ and then Arthur solemnly places his hand over Ariadne’s heart and says, “I feel this room _here_ ,” and Eames says, “All of the tweets are just ‘lolololol’ over and over again.” 

“I don’t understand,” Arthur says again. 

“I do,” says Eames, tapping away at his phone again.

“Oh, God, what are you tweeting now?” 

“My boyfriend has always been a star, thank you, world, for finally noticing. Hashtag arthur-for-everything.” 

“Jesus Christ,” mumbles Arthur, and puts his head on Eames’s chest, because Eames is something he understands. 

Eames wraps him up in his arms, and the feather boas trimming his new blanket tickle at his nose, and Eames says, “Happy?”

And Arthur says honestly, “I was happy before.” 

“Alright,” Eames allows. “Wrong word. Pleased?” 

Arthur considers. And then he shifts so he can look up at Eames. “What is it you say? Chuffed?” 

Eames laughs. “Yes. Chuffed.”

“I am fucking _chuffed_ ,” Arthur admits, because he is. Because for this one perfect wonderful moment he’s a trending topic on Twitter for good things not entirely related to his secret sex club and it’s a nice feeling. It’s a good feeling. 

It’s like being the most popular person in the room, he thinks.


	15. Chapter 15

“Here’s a good one!” Eames calls from the bedroom, while Arthur is in the bathroom getting ready for bed. “‘I loved watching Arthur curl up on all those chairs in Ariadne’s coffee shop, he was like an adorable little kitten.’” 

“An adorable little kitten?” Arthur calls back, applying moisturizer. “You think that’s a good one?” 

“You are like an adorable little kitten. With claws. Who sometimes doesn’t like to be touched. ‘I vote that Arthur remove one article of clothing every episode.’”

“Oh, Christ,” says Arthur. 

“There’s a reply that says, ‘I vote we start with pants.’ Presumably they mean trousers, but it’s possible they just move quickly, in which case, I salute them.” 

Arthur steps out of the bathroom, turning out the light. 

Eames says, “I ought to tweet all of them and tell them that when you play strip poker, the first item of clothing you remove is a cufflink.” 

Arthur chuckles and says, “You don’t have to keep reading tweets out loud for my benefit.” He crawls into the bed with Eames. 

“I’m not,” says Eames, looking at him. “I’m reading them out loud for my benefit.” Eames reaches out a hand and tugs it through Arthur’s hair, combed free and loose over his forehead now, and then cups it around the back of Arthur’s head. “It isn’t that I’m proud of you—that’s the wrong word, because you did this all yourself—it’s just that I’m…I think I’m proud of them, maybe. For noticing, finally. For seeing you. There’s not a single person out there who will ever again think that I drew the short end of the stick in this relationship.” 

Arthur blushes, he can feel it. And it’s true that maybe he won’t have to listen to people say stuff like that for a while. He’s not sure he’ll ever really stop panicking about losing Eames, but at least maybe he’s losing one source of that panic. 

He says, “I’m still all yours,” remembering what Eames had said to him in the hallway about having him all to himself. 

Eames says, “Trust me, I am going to be pretty bloody smug about that,” and kisses him. 

Arthur pushes a little to get Eames on his back and swings himself over to straddle him. 

Eames says, “Wait, before we go any further, I want to show you my absolute favorite tweet,” and turns his phone toward Arthur. 

It’s a still shot of Arthur looking incredibly unimpressed by something, and apparently someone’s turned it into a meme. Emblazoned across this version of it is _Arthur to Alec: I would prefer not to._

“It’s a Bartleby joke,” says Eames helpfully. 

“Yes, I’m the one who made the Bartleby reference,” Arthur reminds him. “I’m surprised you got the joke, though. You’ve read Bartleby?” 

“Darling, I am an extraordinarily well-read individual.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed how you devour ‘Huge Stiff Hot Rods’ from cover to cover.” 

“There is no such magazine, you’re making that up. And if there is such a magazine, why don’t we have a subscription? And if we do have a subscription, why are you hiding it from me?” 

“Tell all of your followers that you’re shutting down Twitter because your superstar boyfriend is going to fuck your brains out right now,” says Arthur. 

“Hashtag Arthur-for-everything,” says Eames, tossing his phone aside. 

***

Arthur wakes in the morning to the smell of…bacon. He’s pretty sure that’s bacon. 

He pokes his head out from under the covers and sniffs the air. Bacon. Absolutely bacon. 

Eames comes in, completely naked and whistling, carrying a plate of bacon. 

“You made bacon?” Arthur asks, shocked. 

“Oh, you’re awake.” Eames looks disappointed. “I was going to wake you up by holding a piece of bacon under your nose.” 

“You can still do that. I won’t object. Like, actual, proper, American bacon, that’s what you’ve made here?” 

Eames holds a piece of actual, proper, American bacon out under Arthur’s nose. “Yes,” he confirms. “Although it pained me to do it.” 

Arthur takes the strip of bacon out of Eames’s hand and munches on it and regards the plate of bacon. “Did you make eggs, too?” 

“Let’s not get too wild and crazy here, darling,” says Eames, and hands Arthur his plate of bacon and climbs back into bed. 

“So you made me a pound of bacon for breakfast in bed. Why?” 

“Because I’m the best boyfriend ever,” Eames explains. 

“You definitely win the award of ‘Boyfriend Who Names Himself Best Boyfriend Ever Most Frequently.’”

“And that’s basically the same award as being named ‘Best Boyfriend Ever’ in the first place,” says Eames. 

“If you say so,” says Arthur. “Did you make me a pound of bacon while naked?”

“The thing about clothing was it seemed like a lot of effort.” 

“And you weren’t worried about spattering grease?” 

“Well, I was once I got the whole thing underway, yes. It was kind of a fraught cooking process. It’s possible I made a thong out of one of the kitchen towels.” 

“It’s possible that kitchen towel should be washed now, right?” says Arthur, and keeps eating his bacon, because it’s wonderful. 

“You know how rules about laundry go over my head,” says Eames. “Listen, darling, I want to read this to you.” Eames pulls Arthur’s laptop onto his lap. 

“More tweets?” asks Arthur, munching on his bacon. 

“New reality show _Next Big Thing_ premiered last night,” reads Eames, “and there’s nothing very groundbreaking about its format. It takes the usual hodge-podge assemblage of contestants of varying talents, throws some challenges at them, and hopes to find a star. NBT’s secret weapon—what makes it stand apart as must-see television—is that its star is actually one of the celebrity judges.”

Arthur is finally distracted from his bacon. “What?” 

Eames keeps reading. “Shows like this rise and fall on the chemistry of their judging panel, and NBT must have thought it had a winner by choosing Arthur and Eames, an already existing duo who star together in reality makeover show _Love It or List It_. The show is a cult favorite and the couple has a devoted Internet following, so their transition to reality competition fare must have seemed like a sure thing. Arthur isn’t a designer but he has a solid understanding of how houses and rooms work, and surely NBT intended for Eames, an acclaimed designer with a solid reputation, to do the heavy lifting for the duo. NBT hit a bit of a snag when the planned third judge dropped out and Alec Hart, another makeover show host, was hastily pushed onto the panel. Maybe NBT knew it was going to strike gold with the trio; I think it just got lucky. But whether it’s a careful marketing strategy or just the gods being kind, do yourself a favor and watch NBT, because you’ll get to witness the extraordinary perfection that is Arthur on this show.” 

“ _What_?” says Arthur. “It doesn’t say that. Let me see it.” 

“It does.” Eames holds the laptop out a bit and points. “‘Extraordinary perfection that is Arthur,’ see? Now hush.” Eames clears his throat. “Arthur has always been a solid personality on _Love It or List It_ , but there isn’t much for him to do on the show, which is formulaic in the extreme and follows a set pattern. Arthur plays straight man to the more charismatic Eames, who has all the natural showmanship of the very best magicians as he reveals the sleight of hand of overhauling a house.” Eames looks at Arthur. “That’s a nice bit about me, I like that bit.” 

Arthur just gives him a bewildered look. 

Eames grins and keeps reading. “I’ve always had a weird weakness for _Love It or List It_ because of the solid chemistry between Eames and Arthur. A couple in real life, the show lights up when they share the screen. Eames flirts and cajoles and coaxes reluctant smiles out of Arthur, who prefers to roll his eyes and raise a dubious eyebrow at Eames’s hijinks. It’s nothing groundbreaking but it’s enjoyable, like a good chocolate-chip cookie, and their fans’ fondness for them is richly deserved. The delight of NBT is that Arthur’s straight man takes over the show, and it’s just what reality television needs at this point. We all know how ridiculous it’s all become. There’s a great bit early on in the episode when Hart says something overly dramatic in that way of reality shows everywhere, and I rolled my eyes and thought, Here we go again, and then the show cut to a reaction shot of Arthur doing basically the same thing, and I suddenly sat up and took notice. Here is a show that is offering a meta commentary on itself right in the middle of the show. Arthur, it turns out, has been limited by Eames the whole time. Their famous banter is still highly entertaining, still a delight to get to listen in on—one exchange about Willy Wonka and Oscar Wilde is especially recommended—but Arthur’s reactions to Eames are so obviously tempered by his affection for him. Arthur rolls his eyes at Eames, but he does it good-naturedly. The addition of Hart allows Arthur to really let loose. Arthur undercuts Hart’s constant attempts to turn NBT into standard-fare reality television, and saves the show in the process. All you have to do is go on the Internet to be able to witness for yourself the glory of Arthur’s expression when he tries out surely the most ridiculous couch ever made (hint: it’s actually a hospital bed). Arthur’s obvious horror at the idea of being forced to negotiate with your neighbor at a coffee shop for an arm rest mirrored everyone at home who has ever been on an airplane. Arthur’s bewilderment at why none of the coffee shops offered in the first challenge could just be coffee shops was a startling change of pace and utterly irresistible when contrasted with Hart’s earnestness toward the whole endeavor.” 

“But—” Arthur starts. 

Eames holds up his hand to silence him. “Nor is Arthur’s magnetism entirely built on his skepticism about the whole affair. He doesn’t seem like he’s been calculating his big break and has leaped in there to seize it. His obvious delight over a contestant’s extravagantly upholstered chairs—think feather boas. Seriously—was the dash of sweet that saved the episode from too much sour. The design in question _was_ endearing, and Arthur’s undisguised and refreshingly genuine enthusiasm for it reminded me of why these reality competition shows were supposed to exist in the first place: to find something we actually _like_. Eames subverts the _Love It or List It_ dynamic by staying wisely mostly in the background and letting the Alec-Arthur tension play out (and the tension is delicious; there’s an ongoing thing about sex dungeons that I don’t even have time to get into here but you should Google it). Eames jumps in just when he needs to in order to move things along, as if he’s the one sticking to the script for a change (he famously ignores the scripts on _Love It or List It_ , as any fan of the show will tell you). But there’s a lovely part when Arthur is in raptures over a cashmere couch and Eames, attempting to have a serious discussion about the merits of the design with the contestant, finally gives up and just looks down at him as if he is the most adorable thing he’s ever encountered. Okay, Eames, you win, I get it: Last night I finally fell in love with him, too.” 

Arthur stares at Eames. He has most of a pound of bacon sitting on his lap still, and Eames closes his laptop and looks at him like he expects him to be able to _say_ something. 

“That’s the best of them,” says Eames. “I like that one. The show got generally good reviews and they generally praise you but that one’s particularly nice.” 

“It’s ridiculous,” says Arthur. “Did you plant it?” 

Eames laughs. “No,” he says. “Oh, wait, this is another of my favorite things.” Eames opens the laptop again and starts typing. 

Arthur thinks to have another piece of bacon. 

“Look.” Eames slides the laptop over to Arthur. 

“Ten frequently asked questions about Arthur,” reads Arthur. 

“Yeah, a lot of them are boring. ‘Is he really dating Eames?’ ‘Where does he get his suits?’ That sort of stuff. Read number five.” 

But Arthur has already skimmed down to it. “‘Does he own a secret exclusive sex club? According to fellow designer Alec Hart: yes. But invitations are hard to come by,’ and then a ridiculous winking face. Oh, my fucking God.” 

“Darling, your Wikipedia entry is literally in lockdown because of the debate over the sex club thing. Alec is going to regret sending those tweets, it’s done nothing but increase your reputation.” 

Arthur shakes his head at his computer. “The world is a strange place.”

“Indeed.” 

“Alec’s going to hate me.” 

“Fuck him. He hated you already.” 

“Don’t actually fuck him,” Arthur says. “That’s what started this whole mess in the first place.”

“So, in some roundabout way, it’s possible fucking Alec is the best thing I’ve ever done,” remarks Eames. 

“You should go take a shower before you destroy all the goodwill you’ve created by making me bacon.” 

Eames grins at him and kisses him and it might have been heading in a good direction except Arthur’s phone rings. 

Arthur assumes it’s going to be Cobb but Eames glances at it and says, “Your mother,” to Arthur’s surprise. And then he answers it. “Hello?...Why, yes, he is available, but surely you’ve heard he’s a big star now and he can’t just be answering his own phone like any common plebeian—”

Arthur shoves at Eames and grabs the phone out of his hand. “Hi, Mom,” he says. “Ignore him.” 

Eames gives him an Eamesian leer for really no reason and then rolls his way out of the bed. 

“ _Arthur_ ,” his mother says. “Everyone has said such nice things! I don’t know why, you’ve been on television all this time, but suddenly everyone is so _impressed_.” 

“Apparently now I’m better at being on television than I used to be.” 

“Well, practice makes perfect,” his mother says. “And you’ve always made everything perfect, given enough time to practice. That’s how you were even as a boy. Even with things that couldn’t be made perfect, you just…kept practicing.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur, because that’s true, and it wasn’t always the best trait. 

“Are you happy?” 

“I was happy before,” Arthur says, as he told Eames. 

“I know. But you deserve this, you know. All of it. You always did. I always knew you did.”

And since it was his mother who had believed in him enough to submit an application for him to get onto television in the first place, Arthur knows this is true. “I’m pretty sure I owe all of this to you,” Arthur says honestly, and it really hits him then. “I mean, not this whole Next Big Thing craziness but Eames. I owe Eames to you.” 

“You owe Eames to _you_. Last I checked he wasn’t in love with me.” 

Arthur looks at the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket at the end of the bed. They’d left it in the living room, so Eames must have brought it in. And, actually, it does match the colors in their bedroom perfectly. Of course it does. The perks of dating a designer. “Yeah,” Arthur smiles. “I guess that’s true.” 

“I wonder if your father is reading all about how wonderful you are,” says his mother. 

Arthur wants to say _who the fuck cares?_. Arthur wants to say _yes, and I hope he feels horrible that he never bothered to wait around to see who I turned out to be_. Arthur wants to say _why would you bring him up? Why remind us both that we still waste any of our time thinking about him?_. Arthur says, “I hope he realizes that’s all credit to you.” 

He talks to his mother a little longer, about how work is for her, about how he really does insist she go on the cruise he bought her last Christmas, it is definitely not a waste of money and he can afford it. By the time he hangs up the shower is off. Arthur assumes Eames is shaving. He is singing as he does it. Mumford and Sons, which makes Arthur smile again. 

He looks at the blanket at the end of the bed and picks up his phone and takes a picture of it and carefully types up a tweet. _Eames made me a fleece-and-feather-boa blanket. Don’t tell him but it probably makes him the best boyfriend ever._


	16. Chapter 16

Arthur’s first day on set as a sudden Internet sensation starts with a text from Cobb. _Thank you for finally doing something that made my life better instead of worse._

Arthur turns his phone so Eames can see it. 

Eames says, “Do you think that means Mal is very, very pleased with us? Pleased enough with us to shag Cobb?” 

“I think it means that Cobb is happy for once and we should stop talking about his sex life so that we don’t get ill before work.” 

“Fair enough,” says Eames. 

Arthur settles into his seat in the car the network’s sent and watches the city pass by outside his window. It looks exactly the way he did before he was an Internet sensation. 

Eames says, “You’re okay, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” asks Arthur, pretending like there is nothing worrying at all in becoming an overnight Internet sensation. 

“I mean, you’re not worrying about Alec?” 

“No,” Arthur says honestly. Arthur has a lot of things he can worry about. Arthur has an endless list of things to worry about, frankly. The top of his list is making sure he makes Eames happy forever, and after that he has his mother to worry about, and whether any of them are saving enough for retirement, and could their house have a carbon monoxide leak because of how old the furnace is, and did he remember to tip the delivery person last night, and a zillion other things, including climate change and income inequality. Alec Hart and His Fucking Fedora and Whatever Fucking Hurt Feelings Alec Hart and His Fucking Fedora might have aren’t making his list. 

“Good. Ignore him.” 

“I honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about Alec,” Arthur says. “And you’re the one who’s bad at ignoring him. I promise not to let him bother me if you promise not to shove him up against any walls.”

Eames considers. “I’m not sure I can make that promise. He’s very wall-shove-able. In not a good way.” 

“We’re going to make a list of off-limit conversational topics and ‘double entendres involving Alec’ is second only to ‘Cobb’s sex life’ on this list.” 

“Can I put topics on this list?” 

“Of course.” 

“Insisting that we ‘cook’ everything to ‘proper temperatures’ to ‘eliminate bacteria,’” votes Eames immediately, using elaborate air-quotes. 

“Did you just air-quote the word bacteria?” asks Arthur. 

“Yes. I was quoting you. Hence the air quotes.” 

“Bacteria aren’t a thing I made up in my head, you know.” 

“I asked about it on Twitter, and the consensus is generally that they support you licking cake batter out of a bowl.” 

“Of course they support this.” 

“They have asked me to videotape the event for them.” 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. 

“Arthur for everything,” Eames says cheerfully, and kisses him. 

Alec is already on set when they get there and he looks up and directly at them and Arthur braces himself for something sneering and sarcastic but Alec says, “There he is! Artie!” and comes toward him with arms outstretched. 

Arthur thinks, _Jesus Christ, is he going to hug me?_ and immediately bends down to pretend to tie his shoe. 

So Alec turns his beaming smile onto Eames instead. “Hello, Eames. Isn’t it all wonderful?”

“Yes,” agrees Eames. And then, after a pause, “What?” 

Arthur rises slowly, thinking it’s safe. Alec immediately turns and claps a hand onto Arthur’s back. Arthur supposes it’s better than a hug would have been. 

“Arthur and I! Celebrity judging sensations! Now, now, don’t be like that,” says Alec, and lays a hand gently on Eames’s shoulder. 

Eames looks at the hand and then back to Alec, eyebrows lifted. “Sorry? Be like what?” 

“Just because you’re not part of the overnight sensation wave, you still have a lot going for you,” Alec assures him. “Doesn’t he, Artie?”

Alec, thinks Arthur, might be a bona fide lunatic. How the fuck did Eames ever fuck him _more than once_? _Repeat times_? 

Arthur catches Eames’s eye and tries to telepath, _You slept with this lunatic, remember that?_ and deadpans, “I’ve been telling him that all morning. Definitely not a total has-been. Still hope for his future.”

“Exactly. I mean…” Alec appears to search for something positive to say, his face in scrunch-face sincerity. “There’s your accent, right? You’ve got that.” 

“Yes,” agrees Eames, giving Arthur a dry look that says, _See? Wall-shove-able_. “My accent is indeed where I turn in times of trouble.” 

“Good. I’m glad that you’re taking this well. Tomorrow is another day.” Alec turns to Arthur. “Artie. Well done. Keep doing what you’re doing.” Another clap on the shoulder, and then Alec wanders off, adjusting the angle on his fedora. 

“So that was all totally fucking normal and not alarming at all,” Arthur tells Eames. 

“Did he just tell me that my accent is the best thing I have going for me?” asks Eames. 

“It is,” Arthur shrugs. 

“I have a really nice mouth, too,” says Eames, offended. 

“Bonjour!” Mal flutters up to them. “Bonjour, my lovelies! How are you this morning? How are you, dear heart?” Mal brushes kisses over Arthur’s cheeks, then Eames’s, then Arthur’s again. “Are we well? It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” Mal kisses Eames’s cheeks again. Then she flits off humming. 

“Definitely got laid,” says Eames. 

“Maybe this is just her ‘ratings were good’ mood,” suggests Arthur. 

“You have a point. I mean, what are the odds Cobb is _that_ good in bed?”

“What did we just agree about off-limit topics of conversation?” 

“We didn’t agree anything,” says Eames blankly. “We were still in negotiations. You were resisting licking cake batter out of a bowl for the good of mankind, and until that happens I can still talk about Cobb’s sex life.” 

“No,” says Arthur. “No, that’s not—”

“Artie!” shouts Alec from across the room. 

“I think you’re being summoned,” Eames remarks. 

“No,” says Arthur. 

“Artie!” shouts Alec, more loudly, as if he’s calling across a football stadium or something. “Ove here!” 

“Hmm, it sounds to me like you’re being summoned.” 

“I’m not being summoned,” Arthur bites out. 

There is a piercing whistle, and Arthur finally gives up and turns around. 

“ _What_?” he demands. 

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” asks Alec, smiling genially. 

“No,” says Arthur. “I heard you calling ‘Artie.’ But my name is Arthur. So I wasn’t sure who you were calling, but it wasn’t me.” 

Alec laughs and laughs and laughs and says to Mal, “You see? You see what this is? This is our chemistry. This is why we click. Isn’t he just hilarious?” 

“He’s going to poach you from me,” murmurs Eames. He sounds as if he thinks this is vastly entertaining. “You’re going to end up on his show. It’ll be ‘Hart of Your Home. With Arthur.’” 

“Artie, come here, let me fill you in on the plan I was just telling Mal.” Alec beckons to him. 

“This is worse,” Arthur says. “This is actually fucking worse than if he’d come in ranting and raving about all of this.” 

“My accent and I are going to take ourselves off to catering, methinks,” says Eames. 

Arthur says, “If you leave me to deal with Alec alone right now, I will walk around our house naked for an entire week licking cake batter out of a bowl and never let you have sex with me.” 

Eames gasps. “You are terrifying and cruel.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur unrepentantly and braces himself and marches over to Alec and Mal. 

Eames trails behind. 

Alec says, “I was just saying that I want you to read the challenge, but I don’t want you to.” 

Arthur repeats, “You want me to…but you don’t want me to.” 

“No, I want you to, but _I_ don’t want you to.” Alec gestures to himself. 

Arthur says, “I don’t—”

“It’s going to be a whole _bit_ , Arthur,” Alec says in exasperation. “You’ll have it in your hand and I’ll try to steal it from your hand and you’ll be, you know, you and you’ll say—” Alec lowers his voice dramatically and speaks in a monotone. “‘Absolutely not, I hate all good things.’”

Arthur stares in horror. Behind him, he can hear Eames doing the worst possible job of suppressing his laughter. 

Alec _keeps talking_. “And I’ll say, ‘But, Artie, you don’t have any sense of drama!’ and then maybe you’ll quote whoever it is you’re quoting all the time. Nelson Mandela? Who is it you quote?” 

Arthur says, after a moment, “Oscar Wilde?”

Eames snorts with laughter, tries to swallow it down, starts coughing dramatically. Arthur decides he’d be okay if Eames choked to death. 

“It’s close enough, right?” says Alec negligently. “You get what I mean. It’s going to be gold.” 

“No,” says Arthur. “No, we’re not doing any of that. Eames is reading the challenge.” 

Eames is busy trying to catch his breath. 

Mal says, “Is Eames dying?” 

“He’ll be fine,” Arthur says, and whacks Eames on the back a few times. “Breathe.” 

“Your concern for my well-being is touching,” wheezes Eames. 

“See?” says Arthur. “He’s fine. He’ll read the challenge.” 

“And we will stand next to each other so that everyone can really feel the electricity between us!” exclaims Alec. “Artie, you are a genius! Didn’t I tell you he was a genius, Mal? Genius.” Alec claps Arthur’s shoulder again and says, “We need to develop a special handshake.” 

“No,” says Arthur. 

“Hilarious,” Alec confides to Mal. “He’s hilarious.” He takes a step back and shouts to the room at large, “Can we figure out the lighting for my hat?” and goes wandering off to snag some random person about the issue. 

“Oh, my God,” whispers Mal, looking rapturously in Alec’s direction. “This train wreck of a show is going to make my career.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to scribblscrabbl, tryingtofindthegreatperhaps, and impextoo for the idea for the challenge in this episode!

The contestants buzz around waiting for the challenge announcement. The delay, as usual, is Alec having to be maneuvered into a position that lights both his hat and his face to his satisfaction. 

Arthur says, “Do you think we’re going to have to go through this for every single one of these challenge reading ceremonies?” 

“It’s fascinating,” breathes Eames, staring transfixed at the whole operation. “It’s like he’s a wax figure at Madame Tussauds.”

Now that Eames mentions it… “That is so creepy,” says Arthur, shuddering a little at the artificiality of Alec’s pose. “I am never going to understand how you slept with him.” 

“He wears suits,” says Eames simply, distractedly, still studying the light-the-hat production. 

Arthur looks at him, surprised by the straightforwardness of that response. “You…Did you sleep with him because he wears suits?” 

“Christ, you’re slow on the uptake,” remarks Eames, glancing out over the contestants. “He put two and two together right away. I mean, he’s really not at all like you—no one is—but he does wear suits.”

Arthur doesn’t really know what to say. He knows that there are surface similarities between his appearance and Alec’s but they’re so superficial that Arthur barely counts them. But apparently, as Eames has so bluntly pointed out, they meant something to Eames. Apparently, the very rough resemblance is the reason Eames was ever involved with Alec at all. 

“Look,” says Eames, breaking into Arthur’s mulling over of all this, “you’ve got a fan.” Eames nods toward the crowd of contestants.

Arthur glances out into the group. He’s expecting to see Ariadne, but it’s another contestant who’s trying to get his attention. The contestant with the wine bar coffee shop. She lifts her hand in Arthur’s direction to reveal “#arthur4everything” written on her palm. Oh, God. The girl winks at him. 

“I’m telling you,” says Eames conversationally, “it’s a good thing I am not a jealous bloke. All of these people, throwing themselves at you, and all I have to compete against them is my accent. That’s it. All I have in my arsenal of tools.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Arthur tells him. “You’ve got a nice enough mouth, too.” 

“I mean,” continues Eames, as if Arthur hadn’t spoken, “you’ve got that girl down there who keeps adjusting her cleavage for you, and you’ve got Alec and his hat. Alec and his hat.” Eames lifts one hand, palm facing the ceiling. “Me and my accent.” Eames lifts the other hand, palm also facing the ceiling. And then he makes a show of lifting one up and dropping the other down, then reversing the position. “It’s really anyone’s guess which of us you’ll choose. When this is done, you should go on ‘The Bachelor.’ I’m going to suggest it to Mal. She’s going to love the idea.” 

“Right now it’s not looking good for you coming out on top,” Arthur informs him. 

Eames grins at him, irrepressible. “I don’t know, I like my odds.” 

“Oh, do you? Pride goeth before a fall.” 

“I know Willy Wonka never said that, so that must be Oscar Wilde,” says Eames. 

“No.” 

“Ah, it was Nelson Mandela, wasn’t it?”

Arthur tries to pretend that he isn’t smiling. “I don’t think you’re funny.” 

Eames isn’t fooled for a second. “You think I’m hilarious.” 

“Uh-huh. There’s that pride going before a fall again.” 

“Darling,” smirks Eames, “look at my competition, would you?” 

Arthur looks over at Alec. His head is tipped at a grotesque angle and now they seem to be carefully positioning the slouch of his shoulders. 

“Wax figure,” Eames comments. “Makes you want to go over there and pose for an awkward selfie, doesn’t it?”

“Alright,” Arthur allows. “Fine. You win against Alec and his hat but I’ve still got the contestant with the cleavage in the running.” 

“She has a vagina,” points out Eames. 

“Not everything’s about sex, Eames.” 

Eames snorts. “Let’s go back to Alec for a second.” 

“Oh, you’re that confident your penis is beating out the contestant’s vagina?” 

“Yeah, actually, I’ll take the odds on that one. Do you think if you went and put a spider on Alec’s nose, he’d move?” 

“No way,” says Arthur immediately, because he’d already debated that internally. “He wouldn’t want to sacrifice the lighting.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I think, too.” 

“How did he ever think he was going to pull off that tableau he wanted of us struggling for the envelope? Was he going to do it while keeping his head tipped at a forty-five-degree angle the whole time?” 

“Fuck, you should have agreed to do it, I would have paid you handsomely to have got to see that.” 

“You already owe me so many back dues for the sex club, you don’t want to add to that bill.” 

“Can I pay you in sexual favors?”

“No.” 

“Christ, you’re ruthless.” 

Arthur shrugs. “You have to be to run a successful sex club.” 

“Ruthless business?” 

“You have no idea,” Arthur assures him. “Everyone thinks a sex club is all fun and games but I keep trying to explain that it’s a lot of paperwork.” 

“What sort of world is it where even a good sex club is bogged down in paperwork?” asks Eames sadly. 

“Arthur! Eames! We’re ready!” Mal shouts across to them.

“Here we go,” says Eames, and they start walking over to Alec. “You’re missing your last flash of cleavage over there, darling.” 

“She knows I’m in a committed relationship, right?” 

“Maybe we ought to hold hands,” suggests Eames. “Make out a little bit. Really make a statement. Or it’s possible she just wants a sex club invite. Or she’s got a very broad interpretation of ‘Arthur-for- _everything_.’” Eames sends him an eyebrow waggle so he can’t miss the implication, and then follows up with, “Get it?” 

“Yeah, I got it, Eames, it wasn’t exactly subtle,” says Arthur. 

“Ready?” Mal asks them, now that they’ve reached the Ideal Alec Lighting Corner. 

Eames brandishes the envelope in his hand. 

“Come stand next to me, Artie.” Alec waves to Arthur. 

Arthur sighs and stands next to Alec. “Do not call me ‘Artie,’” he says.

“Sorry about that. You just look so much like an—”

Arthur notices Alec lifting up his hand, no doubt to clap him on the shoulder, and says, “Do not touch my shoulder.” 

Alec hesitates. “Okay, but can we—”

“And we’re not doing a fucking handshake, either.”

Alec frowns, and it’s almost a relief to finally get to see so vividly through the weird, terrifying bonhomie he’s been projecting. Alec, Arthur thinks, is never his first visible layer. Alec’s a bigger—and worst—actor than Eames. And Alec, Arthur thinks, is fucking furious with him. 

Good. Arthur can deal with that. That’s a normal reaction, as opposed to this crazy partnership angle Alec’s been working. 

Arthur says to Eames, “Open the envelope.” 

Eames sends his most charming smile out to the contestants. They all smile back at him. Arthur gets it. He smiles back helplessly when Eames directs that smile to him, too, and he’s had a lot more practice with trying to resist it. “Ready, kids?” asks Eames. 

There’s a murmur of assent from the contestants. 

“That was very weak,” says Eames. “I’m not entirely sure you’re ready.” 

There’s a louder response to that. Arthur’s big fan spills her cleavage out in Eames’s direction, so Arthur thinks it’s possible she’s for everything, too. Ariadne catches his eye and makes a small gesture like she’s tipping a hat at him. Arthur flickers a smile at her. 

“Do you think they’re ready?” says Eames. “Alec, do you think they’re ready?” 

Arthur realizes that Eames is hoping to draw this out as long as possible so that Alec has to hold his pose as long as possible. 

Alec appears to realize this, too, because he says between his teeth, “Yes. I’m pretty sure they’re ready.” 

“Darling? What do you say?” 

“Open the envelope,” says Arthur, because really, he supports making Alec uncomfortable but he’s already sick of how long it takes on this show to _open a fucking envelope_. 

“He pretends to be shockingly not fun here in public because he saves all the fun for the sex dungeon,” Eames confides to the contestants. 

That gets him scattered applause and whistles. 

Arthur gives Eames the least amused look he has ever given him, and that is saying something for the two of them. 

“Alright, here we go,” says Eames, and at least he rips open the envelope like a normal human being. He reads out loud, “Turn a one-hundred-square-foot space into a fully functioning apartment. Or flat, if you’re speaking proper English. Good luck.” And then he says, “Wait. Alec. Don’t move a muscle. I’m not sure I’m happy with that take, can we try another?”


	18. Chapter 18

While all of the contestants are busy designing their tiny apartments, Arthur is busy reading all about tiny apartments. 

“Micro-apartments,” Arthur informs Eames when he interrupts him in his research. 

Eames says, “Micro-flats.” 

Arthur says, “Are you going to correct everyone who says ‘apartment’ the entire episode?” 

“Arthur for everything, Eames for proper English.” 

“Says the man who once sent me a text ‘l-u-v letter u number 5 dash e-v-a.’”

“Darling, that was _romantic_ ,” Eames assures him earnestly. 

“E-s-p space u-r x-rated emoji.”

“Your point is?” 

Arthur sighs. “Micro-apartments,” he says, and turns the laptop so Eames can see it. “I have a problem.” 

“What’s your problem?” 

“I don’t like them. They make me feel claustrophobic.” 

“Have you ever been in one?” 

“Looking at the photos makes me feel claustrophobic. How am I going to _judge_ them?”

“You’re going to find the one that makes you feel least claustrophobic.” 

“See, that’s what I did wrong last time, though,” says Arthur, frustrated. “I can’t just go with the one I like again.” 

“Yes,” says Eames. “You can. That’s what judging is.” 

“I liked Ariadne’s design. It was my favorite design. But it wasn’t the best. You didn’t think it was the best.” 

Eames, sitting on the couch in Arthur’s office with an ankle propped on his knee, frowns. “You’re overthinking this. Which isn’t unusual for you, but this particular overthinking worries me. We don’t have to have the same opinion on the designs. That’s perfectly alright.” 

“Why is that perfectly alright?” Arthur demands stubbornly. “You’re a world-class designer, aren’t you? Well-respected by your peers? Good at what you do?” 

“And very sexy, don’t forget that,” inserts Eames. 

“I am being _serious_ ,” Arthur huffs. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, I just like soft fabrics.” 

Eames regards him for a long moment. 

Then he stands up and starts unbuckling his belt. 

“And what’s happening now?” asks Arthur, lifting an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m taking off my trousers.” 

“I see that. For what purpose?” 

“We’re going to have sex.” 

“No, we’re going to talk about micro-apartments.” 

“You’re going to give yourself a fit, darling, let’s have sex and shut your mind up, hmm?” Eames drops his trousers. 

Arthur says, “See, now there’s nothing to look at but that garish shirt you’re wearing. Why wouldn’t you have started with your shirt?” 

Eames glances down and then back up. “I think there’s stuff to look at that’s not my shirt.” 

“Nothing that can compete with that shirt.” 

“Shh,” says Eames, “he’s saying things he doesn’t mean.” 

“Please don’t talk to your genitals,” says Arthur. “Honestly.” 

“You’re probably going to need to shut me up,” suggests Eames. 

Arthur just gives him a look. 

Eames leans over and closes his laptop gently and tugs it off of his lap and says softly, “Darling. Look at me. My face, not my garish shirt or terribly attractive nether regions.” 

“Nether regions,” echoes Arthur. “You are possibly the worst at seduction in the entire universe.” 

“And yet you still let me in your secret exclusive sex club.” 

Arthur looks at him, and he’s close enough now that Arthur can make it all the streaks of green and gray that temper his blue eyes. Arthur says honestly, “I have this inexplicable weakness for you.” 

Eames quirks a smile at him and says, “Your viewpoint on all of this is every bit as valid as mine. No designer designs in a vacuum. We have to design for an audience. You’re our audience. You’ll be fine. Okay?”

Arthur considers. 

“Nod your head, darling,” prompts Eames. “Tell me you believe me.” 

“Yes.” Arthur nods his head a little bit. “Yes. Okay. Fine. You make a good point. I just don’t want to fuck this up. I mean, all the good things in my life. All of them. I don’t want to fuck them up.” 

Eames smiles at him in a way that lets Arthur know that he understood that when Arthur talked about the good things in his life he really meant Eames. And Eames says, “Darling, let me show you what a micro-flat is all about.” 

“That really doesn’t work as a double entendre, Eames,” says Arthur. 

“Use your imagination, darling,” Eames grins at him.


	19. Chapter 19

Arthur is giving himself a mental pep talk. 

_You’re not nervous_ , he is telling himself. _You’re going to be fine. You’re actually really good at this. Look at how much people loved you last time. You’re a natural. Stop overthinking. Shut up your brain. No, shut up. No, stop thinking. Stop. Shut up. Stop._

That doesn’t seem to be working. 

Arthur looks at himself in the mirror. He’s wearing a new suit. It was Eames’s gift to him on his last birthday. Well, really, it had just been the money for the suit, and Eames had told him to have at it, and Arthur had gone to his tailor and picked out exactly what he wanted, and he _loves_ the suit. It’s a gorgeous suit and when he’d put it on that morning Eames had immediately taken it off of him. It’s a good suit and it looks good on him and he has good taste and he looks good and all he has to do is look good, really. Eames will talk until everybody’s ears fall off, so if Arthur can’t come up with anything intelligent to say, Eames will do it for him. 

And sure, he probably won’t be a trending topic on Twitter anymore, but that doesn’t matter. He has Eames. 

He is going to be fine. 

_You’re going to be fine_ , he mentally tells his reflection, and then he nods sharply, and then he steps out of the men’s room, and he’s only walked a couple of steps back toward the judges’ room when Alec comes around the corner. 

“Ah,” says Alec, sending Arthur a smile. Not his cameras-are-on-me smile. This is a smile where the veneer is cracked and the true feelings are leaking through. “Hello.” 

“Hi,” says Arthur blandly, because there’s no reason to be rude, and part of him feels more at ease with Alec when he’s not trying to be his best friend. 

He’s about to step past Alec when Alec blocks him. “You know you’re not going to be able to keep it up.” 

Arthur would have to shove to get past and he doesn’t feel like investing that kind of effort at the moment. So he asks, affecting boredom, “Is this about the orgies? Because I’ve got the orgies covered, although your concern is touching.” 

The smile doesn’t falter. Alec’s eyes are hard. He is definitely not trying to be Arthur’s best friend at the moment. “So you’re the next big thing right now,” he drawls. 

“A pun,” deadpans Arthur. “How clever.” 

“It won’t last, and you know it.”

“It doesn’t need to last,” Arthur promises him. “Trust me, I’m very used to not being the most popular person in the room. I’ve perfected it.”

“Ah, but you’ve done this wrong,” says Alec. “You’ve done it all wrong. You’ve made a huge mistake.”

“I’m sure I have,” Arthur says politely, trying to step past him again.

Alec blocks him again. “I know you think I’m an idiot, beneath your notice, not worth your time. But you don’t know anything about me. You only know what I want you to know. I don’t care what you think of this Alec Hart you see, because he’s not me. You think you’re so superior, but you’re the idiot, because you don’t have a role to hide behind. It’s all you out there, everything anyone says about you. You try ignoring them when they turn on you and it’s _you_ they’re turning on. The you you really are. Then what will you have? Other than a ridiculous suit.” Alec spits out this last, looking disdainfully at what Arthur’s wearing. 

Arthur knows he should walk away—he knows he should—but the thing is that he’s already had this thought. Does Alec really think he hadn’t already realized how precarious his position is? Does Alec think he’s really that stupid? Arthur’s already thought of all of this and none of it matters because of one very important fact. “I’ll have Eames.” 

Alec laughs. Not his overdramatic laugh. More of a sarcastic snort. “Yeah, take it from me: He’s not exactly the type who sticks around when the going gets rough. He’s all about Arthur-for-everything at the moment but he’s not going to stand for sharing the spotlight in the long run and we both know that.” 

Arthur looks at Alec for a long moment. Then he says flatly, “It’s a fucking gorgeous suit,” and punches Alec’s face.


	20. Chapter 20

Arthur knows how to throw a good punch. And he does throw a good punch at Alec but when the heat of the moment is over and the punch is thrown he really wishes he’d taken the time to savor it more. Mostly he’s left with the vague sense of _Alec deserved that_ and _oh, God, did I really just hit him?_

Alec, for his part, seems genuinely shocked. “You _punched_ me!” he exclaims, from the wall he’s reeled up against, his hand at his eye. 

Arthur, for lack of anything better to do, adjusts his tie and offers, “Well. You’re a dick.” 

“I think you broke my cheekbone,” whines Alec. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” huffs out Arthur. “I didn’t break your cheekbone. I didn’t hit you that hard.” 

“You’re a lunatic,” Alec accuses. 

Normally Arthur would dispute that but, honestly, Arthur feels like it might be possible Alec makes him a little crazy. 

Mal rounds the corner, Eames in tow, saying, “There you both are! We’ve been looking—”

“Arthur hit me!” Alec says immediately, like this is fucking elementary school. 

Mal blinks between them. “What?” 

“Look.” Alec lowers his hand and gestures to his face. 

His cheek is a little red and swollen. It doesn’t look like much. But it probably will, in a couple of days. 

Mal looks from Alec’s cheek to Arthur and raises her eyebrows and Arthur is remind of principals’ offices as a child. “Did you hit him?”

“Yes,” Arthur admits, “but he started it.” Christ, he’s literally regressed to being twelve years old. He fucking hates Alec Hart and His Fucking Fedora. 

“How am I ever going to go on like this?” pouts Alec, gesturing to his face. 

“It really doesn’t look like much,” Mal informs him mercilessly. 

“It didn’t even knock his hat off,” Arthur notes. 

Alec glares at him. “It feels like my cheekbone is _broken_. Is there a doctor on the set?” 

“Maybe we can find some ice,” says Mal, although she sounds doubtful. 

Arthur glances at Eames, who has one eyebrow lifted at him and looks amused. 

And suddenly, abruptly, Arthur is angry. This isn’t _funny_. Nothing about this is _amusing_. Under normal circumstances, Arthur is aware he loves Eames’s ability to find humor in all situations. Under normal circumstances, Arthur is aware that this acts as a nice counterbalance to his own tendency to take everything too seriously. 

These are not normal circumstances, and Arthur feels too tight in his own skin and like he just needs two minutes alone. 

Which of course is when Eames sidles up to him and says, “Darling, whatever will Twitter think?” 

“Twitter,” repeats Arthur flatly, because, really, that is the worst fucking thing Eames could have said. 

Eames blinks at the tone and the amusement slides off his face. “What?” 

“Fucking Twitter,” Arthur spits out. “That’s the thing you’re worried about? What _Twitter_ will say about it?” 

“I…No, I don’t—That was a joke.” Eames’s tone is harsh now, matching Arthur’s. “What—”

“Not now,” Arthur cuts him off swiftly. “I can’t do this now. I need two minutes. You need to give me two minutes.” 

Arthur doesn’t give Eames time to respond, just marches off, and he can hear Alec behind him saying to Eames, “Are you sure he’s stable?” and it makes Arthur want to put a hand through a wall so instead he blindly rounds the next corner and walks to the end of the hallway and knocks his head against the wall, not hard, just enough to give himself a little jolt of grounding reality. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the wall and Alec Hart says in his head _he’s not going to stand for sharing the spotlight in the long run_ and it’s so stupid because Alec is wrong about Eames and he knows it and at the same time does he actually know it or does he just think it because he’s in love with Eames and he would rush headlong into any amount of unknowability just to keep Eames—

“Are you having another panic attack?” asks a voice behind him. 

Arthur almost smiles against the coolness of the wall. “No,” he says, because he’s really not. He hasn’t processed enough to even get to that point. 

“You’re standing,” Ariadne points out, “so, by your own assessment, you’re doing pretty good, right?” 

Arthur opens his eyes and turns to face her but stays leaning against the wall. “Hello,” he says pleasantly, like he’s not in all sorts of emotional turmoil. “How’s your day going?” 

“That depends a lot on the judging and it hasn’t started yet. How’s _your_ day going?” 

“I punched Alec Hart,” Arthur informs her, because he doesn’t really see a reason to lie about it. 

“Yeah, that seems about right,” says Ariadne. 

Arthur actually laughs a little bit. He takes a deep breath and looks at Ariadne and, fuck it, he doesn’t exactly have a profusion of confidantes. “Are you a popular person?” he asks her. 

“I’ve never stopped to think about it,” says Ariadne. 

“Were you homecoming queen?” 

Ariadne snorts. “No.” 

“Okay. So how do you think they do it? The popular people. How do you think they…stay popular…without going insane?” 

“I’m not sure they do,” Ariadne says, regarding him thoughtfully. “Is this about Arthur-for-everything?” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Not really. Or maybe. It’s mostly about Eames. Most of the things in my life are mostly about Eames and is that pathetic? Or is it normal? Or is it good?” 

“I feel like Twitter thinks you’re obsessed with clothing labels but actually you’re just a label person in general, aren’t you?” remarks Ariadne. 

Arthur considers this. “Maybe,” he decides. 

“It seems to me that if you want to know the label you need for stuff about Eames, you should probably ask Eames his opinion on that.” 

Arthur studies her. “Are you an actual contestant, or are you just some sort of guardian pixie sprite that pops up to give me life advice every so often?” 

“If I were a guardian pixie sprite, I feel like I’d be able to make ice cream sundaes appear for both of us right now.” There’s a pause, evidently so Ariadne can try to summon by the power of her thoughts some ice cream sundaes. Nothing happens. Ariadne sighs sadly. “And yet, as you see, no ice cream sundaes.” 

“Disappointing,” says Arthur. “Maybe you’re just a disappointing guardian pixie sprite.” 

“Probably my father would tell you that, if I was going to be a guardian pixie sprite, I’d be an underachieving one.” 

“Well, you’re not much of an underachiever as a designer.”

“No, I seem to be doing okay in that department,” agrees Ariadne, “if you don’t count the fact that I was supposed to be an architect. This is a huge step down.” 

“I don’t know,” says Arthur. “The best person I know is a designer.” 

“So is Alec Hart,” Ariadne reminds him. 

“Which is why the design world needs more people like you and Eames.” 

“Let me ask you a question.” 

Arthur braces himself for an unpleasantly invasive personal question. He’s been using this poor girl as some kind of quasi-therapist, the least he can do is answer a question for her. “Okay,” he says slowly. 

“Does your sex club need a receptionist? I bet I would be an awesome sex club receptionist.” 

This catches Arthur entirely off-guard. “What do you think makes an awesome sex club receptionist?” he asks wonderingly. 

“I’m friendly and discreet,” says Ariadne cheerfully. 

“We’ll let you know if we’re taking applications,” says Eames, startling Arthur. 

And Ariadne, too, apparently, from the way she whirls suddenly to face him. “Hi,” she says. “We weren’t fraternizing.” 

“Mal’s not here,” Eames assures her. “And I don’t fucking care.” His eyes shift to Arthur. 

He doesn’t even have to raise an eyebrow for Arthur to know exactly what Eames is asking with that look. Arthur nods and looks at Ariadne and says, “Do you mind…”

“Nope.” Ariadne shakes her head hastily. “Absolutely not. I will see you both later, for the first time today, none of this ever happened.” She goes scurrying out of the hallway. 

Eames looks at Arthur, and Arthur looks at Eames. 

Eames says, “It’s been two minutes.” 

“Right,” says Arthur, and pushes himself off of the wall. “I’m okay—”

“Don’t take another step,” Eames says sharply, and Arthur freezes against the wall, and Eames stalks down the hallway toward him. In front of Ariadne, he had looked laidback and casual, but Arthur realizes now that was all for show, because Eames looks upset. “What the fuck?” he says, but, despite the impatience on his face, he asks it almost gently, with honest confusion. 

Arthur shakes his head a little bit, because he doesn’t want to get into it. “Can we not—”

“No. We have to. You don’t go around punching people unprovoked, so he had to have said something to you. You said it yourself, that he started it. What could it possibly have been? You already know everything there is to know about what happened between us, so whatever he might have told you about that, you’ve got to know it was a lie. And if it was something about me, then that’s a lie, too, and who gives a fuck what he—”

“How do you know?” Arthur cuts in suddenly, and then wonders why he did it and wants to take it back but it’s too late now. 

Eames looks at him in surprise. “Darling, does it need to be said that you know me far better than he ever did?” 

Arthur says, “There’s one thing he knows about you that I don’t know.” 

Eames looks blank. 

Arthur explains, “Why you would break up with someone.” 

“Forgive me,” says Eames, “but I thought that was something about me you were happy not knowing.” 

Arthur feels like an idiot. And he’s exhausted, and stupidly scared, and he has no idea what he’s doing and he just wants Eames to tell him it will be alright. “Can you just…” he says, and then reaches out and grabs Eames and pulls him in roughly, burrows into him, breathes against his chest. 

“Christ,” Eames breathes, and closes his arms tightly around him and kisses the top of his head. “What the fuck did he _say_ to you?” 

“I love you,” says Arthur into Eames’s chest, because he knows Eames will say it back and Arthur needs to hear it. 

“I love you, too.” There’s another kiss to the top of his head. “Whatever Alec said about why I break up with people, get it out of your head. I break up with people because they wear stupid hats during sex, and you’ve never once done that, so you’re safe.” 

Arthur let Eames make his stupid joke, makes one in return. “He said my suit is ridiculous.” 

“This suit you’re wearing right now? You should have knocked out his front teeth for that, then. You went far too easy on him.” 

Arthur chuckles and relaxes more into Eames, breathing against him. It’s okay, he thinks, like this. He’d be totally, completely, utterly okay if he could spend his entire life with his eyes squeezed shut and his face pressed into Eames, as if nothing outside of him exists. 

Eames says softly, “I’m going to pull out of the show.” 

Arthur lifts his head up quickly. “What? Why?”

“Because Alec’s obviously using me to upset you and I don’t want to—”

“No.” Arthur shakes his head furiously. “No, no, no. I’ll pull out.”

“Darling—”

“You love the show—”

“But you’re so good at it, darling, and I think you—”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Arthur says in a rush. “You know that, right? The Arthur-for-everything fucking nonsense, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care about being Twitter-famous or whatever, I don’t want it, I’ll go back to just being Arthur and sooner or later people will get tired of speculating about the sex club and you’ll still be you, so you should stay and do the show.” 

Eames looks at him for a long moment, and then he says, “Of course. Of _course_ Alec would think that I broke up with him because he was a threat to my star power.”

Fuck, why is Eames always so much more fucking clever than Arthur would like? “That’s not—”

“That’s what he told you, isn’t it? That I can’t handle sharing fame, or whatever? Bloody hell, darling, you know I don’t give a fuck. Go and be President of the United States if you want; I will be more than happy to be a docile, blushing, barely acknowledged First Lady.” 

Arthur manages, “Nothing about you is docile, or blushing, or barely acknowledged.” 

“Or a lady,” Eames adds, after a second. 

Arthur refuses to be goaded into the joke. “You’re the most important thing in my entire fucking universe,” he says, and he can hear how raw his voice is with honesty. “And I don’t know how to keep—There is nothing that I wouldn’t—I mean, you know that I—I’m fine with—I don’t care what happens—I don’t want you to think—”

Eames puts him out of his misery by kissing him. “Shh,” he says when he draws back, and he brushes kisses over the bridge of Arthur’s nose, over his fluttering eyelids, over his cheekbones, to each of his currently-absent dimples, murmuring as he goes. “Darling, darling, darling Arthur. Arthur for everything. I would follow you to the ends of the earth for a simple _smile_ from you. I will never cease to be amazed every day that you give me more. You need never speculate why I break up with people. It will never be relevant to you.” 

And part of Arthur knows it’s ridiculous to take comfort from an assurance like that, because nobody starts a relationship thinking that it will end in tears and tragedy, everyone believes that their relationship will be one that lasts. But still, he feels better, being kissed and cuddled and soothed by Eames. Eames just always makes everything better and Arthur loves him so desperately much. 

Eames stops nuzzling at him, pulls back a little. “Feel better?” 

Arthur nods, opening his eyes. 

Eames kisses the tip of his nose. “If you don’t want to do the show, quit. If you don’t want me to do the show, say the word. If you don’t want either of us to do the show, fine with me. I will fight you on the things I really care about, like raw cake batter and paisley shirts. But my only interest in this particular matter is your happiness.” 

It feels like giving up, Arthur thinks, to walk away now. And there’s a part of him that understands that the challenge of this is good for him. It’s good for him to confront things that make him nervous. And, anyway, Ariadne needs a voice in her corner, he thinks. 

“Let’s keep doing it,” says Arthur. 

“You’re sure?” 

“I reserve the right to change my mind.” 

“Alright,” Eames agrees. 

“Is Mal very angry?” 

“I think she’s tickled pink. Oh, the drama. This will be all over the Internet by the end of the day.” 

“What do you think Alec will do to retaliate?” 

“To be honest, I rather think he’s terrified of you. You’re very hot when you coolly and competently punch someone whilst wearing a bespoke suit, you know. The proper reaction to that is either terror or unbridled lust.” 

“I’m hoping Alec’s was the former,” says Arthur. 

“Which do you think mine was?” asks Eames. “I’ll give you a hint.” 

“I bet I don’t even need the hint.” 

“You’re no fun,” says Eames. 

“Not outside of the sex club, at least,” says Arthur. 

“There’s my banter, how I’ve missed you,” says Eames, and kisses Arthur’s emerging dimples.


	21. Chapter 21

“We’re ready,” Eames announces, when they rejoin Alec and Mal. 

Alec has Julia the makeup artist fussing over him. He glares at Eames and says, “Yeah, well, I’m not, because your boyfriend is a psycho.”

“Alec,” sighs Eames, “I hate to break this to you, but punching you is actually a perfectly logical response to you.” 

Alec manages to glare harder. It’s impressive.

Julia says, “Can you stay still, please? It’s bad enough I have to work with this hat in the way.” 

Mal says, “The designers are ready, and I’m sure they’re getting anxious at the delay. As soon as Julia finishes with Alec—”

“You think I’m just going to go on and keep judging? With him? Just like that?” Alec demands. 

Mal gives him a cool look. “Considering that Next Big Thing is a huge hit and keeping your name on social media and without it you’ll just fade into the trivia of ‘the judge that left that groundbreaking reality show’? Yes. I think you’re just going to go on and keep judging.” 

Alec looks comically offended by this. 

Mal walks over to Arthur and needlessly straightens his lapels and says briskly, in a low voice, “No more assault, hmm?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. 

“Good. Can you reluctantly apologize to him to make it look as if I’ve punished you?” 

“Yes,” says Arthur, because Alec’s a dick but Arthur probably shouldn’t go around punching people. At least, that’s what his mother would have told him. Using slightly better language. Arthur steps around Mal and walks over to Alec and says very formally, “I’m sorry I punched you.” 

Alec says primly, “Thank you.” 

“Excellent,” says Eames brightly. “I think we’ve all learned a very important lesson today.” 

“What lesson is that, exactly?” glowers Alec. 

“Arthur learned that that hat is very tight on your head and it takes a lot to knock it off. I learned that sex clubs need receptionists.” Eames levels his gaze at Alec, icy, not a trace of amusement. “And you learned…to stop.” And then his cheerfulness is back. “Here we go. Judgment time.” He walks out of the room whistling. 

Alec looks dazed. More dazed, actually, then he looked after Arthur had punched him. Trust Eames to get more done with a look and a mild threat than Arthur could accomplish with his actual, effective violence. 

Arthur hurries after Eames and grabs his arm and Eames says, “What—” and Arthur shoves him into a corner and kisses him hard. “Mmph,” Eames says into his mouth, and then settles into the business of kissing him back, and Eames is grappling with Arthur’s suit coat to get underneath it, which is going to wrinkle it but Arthur really doesn’t fucking care when he has Eames pinned against a wall this way. 

“I fucking love you,” Arthur tell him breathlessly, pulling back for a moment. 

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Eames manages to gasp before Arthur captures his mouth again. 

“Ugh,” says Julia from behind them, “we’re going to have to do hair and makeup again.” 

“Go away,” Eames mumbles, tugging Arthur closer. 

Mal says, “I shall give you boys five minutes in honor of romance, and then we get started.” 

“What, _seriously_?” complains Alec. 

“Try to avoid each other’s hair,” says Julia, and it sounds like they’re already moving away. 

“Are they gone yet?” Arthur asks Eames, without lifting his head up far enough to really look. 

Eames nods. “Can I just say something?” he asks, before Arthur can get back to kissing him. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at him. “Mal just gave us five minutes of making out time, and you want to spend it saying something?”

“Just really quickly, and then we can make out a lot.” 

“Go ahead,” Arthur says, amused, and plants open-mouthed kisses along the line of Eames’s throat. 

“This is why people think you’re running a sex club, you know,” Eames rushes out. 

Arthur huffs laughter against Eames’s skin. “This is my feral sexuality, is it?” 

“Absolutely. Okay, now you can kiss me again.” 

But Arthur can’t kiss him because Arthur is too busy laughing helplessly into Eames’s collarbone. Eames messes up his hair in order to hold him closer and Arthur’s okay with that, even if Julia won’t be.


	22. Chapter 22

The only thing that is going to help Arthur with his sense of claustrophobia in the very small spaces is the fact that none of them are, in fact, enclosed spaces, since there wouldn’t have been room for all the judges, the contestant, and the cameras. So it’s just the judges and the contestant in the micro-apartments while Yusuf and his cohort—whose name Arthur doesn’t yet know because he is a terrible human being and meanwhile Eames probably has already added him to the Christmas card list and has his birthday marked in the calendar on his phone—flit around on the outside. 

Arthur still feels vaguely claustrophobic. Part of the problem is that this first contestant watched the first episode and has distilled all of the drama of the episode into a single word: _feathers_. The very first micro-apartment is, in fact, a veritable forest of feathers. Arthur has to push his way through them like he’s on a safari. Everything about it is unpleasant. 

“My theme for this,” the contestant tells them, gesturing grandly, “is…” The contestant pauses. And pauses. And pauses. The contestant must have learned dramatic pausing at the Alec Hart School of Dramatic Pauses. 

Alec is hanging on the contestant’s silence, looking extraordinarily fascinated, like nothing has ever been as interesting as this momentous Dramatic Pause. Eames is poking through the feathers—they are glued flat to the walls and also arranged to fountain outwards, they cascade from the ceilings, they are heaped in piles on every flat surface, and as Eames moves through them, he disturbs them into brief dances behind him—and not paying the least bit of attention. 

It suddenly occurs to Arthur that maybe the contestant is waiting for one of them to guess. “Feathers?” says Arthur. 

The contestant and Alec both look at Arthur with startled expressions. They must have been so deep in the art of Dramatic Pauses that they’d forgotten the existence of other people in the room. 

The contestant says, “ _Feathers_?” as if Arthur has said the world’s most nonsensical non-sequitur. 

Arthur looks at the feathers all around them. Is he hallucinating? He reaches out and flicks one and says, “Yeah. Were feathers your theme?” 

The contestant looks horrified. 

Alec clasps one of the contestant’s hands like this is some kind of fucking romantic melodrama and says, “Don’t pay attention to him. He’s very literal. He doesn’t have a designer’s _imagination_.” 

Eames speaks from the other side of the flat. Which isn’t that far away. “But why did you fill the flat with feathers, if it wasn’t for Arthur’s benefit?” 

“What?” the contestant says, looking at Eames. He seems surprised that Eames has spoken. 

Eames kicks his way through a pile of feathers to get back to where the rest of them are standing. “Arthur’s the one who’s partial to feathers. You know that from the first episode. If you weren’t trying to impress Arthur’s non-designer brain, then why fill the flat with feathers?” 

There’s a long moment of silence. Arthur doesn’t think this one is meant to be a Dramatic Pause. 

Eames waits the Dramatic Pause out for a little bit, then resumes speaking. “Because, honestly, it’s a bit much all in one place like this, isn’t it? You’ve got a small space and you filled it up. You can’t even move without running into them.” 

“It’s an _experience_ ,” the contestant explains, trying to recover, and clearly trying not to glare at Eames too openly. (He’s failing.) 

“An experience of what?” asks Eames affably, and sticks his hands in his pockets as if settling in for a good listen. 

The contestant says huffily, “It speaks for itself.” 

“He’s right,” Alec says immediately, flatly. “If you need to have it explained to you, then you’re never going to get it.” 

Eames gives Alec a hard look for a long moment. Then he says, “It’s about flight. It’s about how we ground ourselves. We have the means to be _more_ than we are in scattered debris all around us, and we never seize the day and take what already is all around us, in profusion, and make ourselves that little bit more. We are surrounded, every day, by the tools we need to take flight, and we never stop to see them.” 

Arthur looks around at the feathers everywhere and actually, when you put it that way, there’s something to this design. 

Eames says to Alec, “That’s how it’s done. That’s what makes a good designer. Sell the whole experience. Make them want to buy the story. That’s how you do it. Just like that. And you really think, for one second, that I ever thought there was a possibility you could be better than me at that? Really?”

Alec narrows his eyes at Eames. Arthur looks between the two of them and tries to gauge whether he needs to step in. 

Then Eames takes a step back and says easily, “Mind you, it’d be a lark to shag in this place. Keep it in mind for the sex club, darling. Moving on.” Eames strides out of the micro-apartment, feathers bobbing in his wake.


	23. Chapter 23

Not all of the micro-apartments are that bad, although there are several more drowning in soft fabrics. Those contestants all look at Arthur hopefully, and Arthur knows they want him to fall all over their furniture dramatically the way he did with Ariadne’s but mostly Arthur wants to inch away from the furniture. It’s all just _too much_ in the tiny spaces, he feels like he’s drowning in sensory overload. 

Eames says as much, as he goes through critiquing the designs. “Too much texture,” he says to them. “Too much pattern. If you spent too much time in this room, you’d find yourself shredding the pillows.” He stands outside of one of the micro-apartments that has been carpeted with literal shag carpeting and just says, “No, no, no. Darling, step back, you mustn’t get that carpet on those beautiful Italian shoes. Arthur has his shoes made by Italian virgins by the light of the full moon.” 

“No, I don’t,” says Arthur. 

“Something about caviar,” Eames says. 

Arthur is startled, because he suddenly gets this. This isn’t just random banter, this is a conversation they’ve had before. He looks at Eames in amazement. “How do you _remember_ that?” 

Eames hums noncommittally and says, “Shag carpeting. We do have standards. We refuse to go in.” 

The contestant’s face falls and Arthur feels a little bad. He doesn’t think shag carpeting was a good idea but Eames’s refusal to even give the design a chance clearly hurts the contestant’s feelings. After all, Eames went through the motions with a hospital-coffee-shop last episode. 

“Well, _I_ wish to hear about this design,” proclaims Alec grandly, and steps into the micro-apartment. 

Eames gives Alec a look that probably would have turned him to stone if Eames had magical powers. 

Arthur edges his way over to Yusuf. “Can we have a second?”

Yusuf looks at him blankly. “A second for what?” 

“To be alone.” 

Yusuf stares at him. “During the filming of a reality show? You two want to have a private moment? Right now? Really? Can’t you just talk in your sex code you use?”

“We don’t…” sighs Arthur. “Never mind.” He walks backs over to Eames, still outside of the micro-apartment, apparently listening intently to the contestant’s conversation with Alec. Arthur presses himself next to him and speaks directly into Eames’s ear. “You okay?” 

“Fine,” Eames answers without hesitation, his gaze not leaving Alec. 

“You don’t let me get away with that,” breathes Arthur into Eames’s ear, “so I’m not going to let you get away with it. He’s an idiot who doesn’t matter.”

Eames’s hand comes up to cup Arthur’s head and he shifts so now he’s the one talking directly into Arthur’s ear. “He deliberately upset you. You got to punch him. I didn’t get to do anything.” 

“Alright, fine,” Arthur murmurs, “I’ll give you one not-sexy wall-shove to get it out of your system. Be careful, though, the walls in these apartments seem flimsy.” 

For a moment Eames doesn’t react. And then he chuckles. And then he hugs Arthur, rests his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. 

“I’m fine,” Arthur tells him softly. “I am. No emotional crisis in sight.” 

Eames breathes deep, then kisses his shoulder. “It’s a flat, darling. The walls in these _flats_ seem flimsy.” Then he straightens and steps into the micro-apartment. “Okay, sorry,” he calls to the contestant, with his best _I’m adorable and should be forgiven all transgressions_ grin. “I’ve grown acclimated to the shag carpeting. Tell me about the rest of it.”


	24. Chapter 24

Not all of the micro-apartments are terrible. Arthur thinks that maybe the contestants did learn something from the experience of the first episode. There are a few that are sleek and modern in the style of the winning coffee shop, and while Arthur still isn’t sure that he likes those rooms to the extent that Alec and Eames do, he does admit that they make him feel less claustrophobic than the busier micro-apartments. 

Arthur thinks maybe he’s getting better at judging these designs. At least he has realized that he is the only one who has any practical thoughts. Ever, apparently. Designers, Arthur thinks. If you let them, they would go off into constant flights of fancy. 

Feather pun aside. 

Arthur, for instance, is the one that points out the obvious about a micro-apartment that Eames and Alec are clearly enthusiastic for. “But,” he says, peeking under the sleeping loft portion of the micro-apartment, which is both television-viewing area and office. 

Eames pokes his head out from the sleeping loft, leaning over the edge so he can see Arthur. “What but?” he asks. “It’s lovely, don’t you think? Very functional and also comfortable.”

“Don’t fall out of that,” Arthur warns. “And you think this place is functional?” 

“Okay, you make a good point that it would be easy to fall out of this bed if one were engaging in exuberant sex.” Eames hops down from the sleeping loft easily and says to the contestant, “That’s a professional tip for you. When designing a sleeping space, keep in mind that possibly your clients like to have really energetic and-or kinky sex and just don’t want to tell you about it.” 

The contestant looks as if he doesn’t know whether Eames is serious about this advice or not. “Okay?” says the contestant. 

“Energetic sex,” Eames explains, “would be sex that you couldn’t keep a hat on for, you know?” 

Alec, who had been investigating the storage space in the tiny kitchenette area, lets it slam shut and frowns at Eames. 

Eames is wearing his most beneficent look. 

The contestant looks at Arthur as if she thinks that Arthur should have something to contribute to this ridiculous conversation. 

And Arthur realizes that obviously she thinks that because she thinks Arthur is a sex club entrepreneur. 

Arthur tries to get the conversation back on track. “I have a serious functional problem with this apartment.” 

“Flat, darling. It’s a flat.” 

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t have a _bathroom_ ,” Arthur points out. 

There is a pause. Eames, looking surprised, backtracks over the whole apartment. Which doesn’t take long. 

Alec says, “Well, I think it’s meant to be a metaphor for how we cannot ignore the waste that we leave behind us; we should force ourselves to face it.” 

Alec has been trying all day to replicate Eames’s success with metaphor-izing the feather design. This is one of his worst attempts and Arthur just can’t let it go. He says flatly, “By going to the bathroom on our coffee tables?” 

“Well,” says Alec, refusing to retreat from his ridiculousness. Instead, he makes a dramatic hand-waving gesture in lieu of anything better to say. 

The contestant just says mournfully, “Fuck, I forgot to add a bathroom.” 

***

The next micro-apartment is cunningly designed. Arthur is impressed with all of it. He likes the cleverness of the design, how every single space is multi-use but in a way that makes sense, as opposed to the design by another contestant who tried to solve the space issue by putting the toilet directly next to the refrigerator and claiming that the opening of the refrigerator door could provide enough privacy. (Arthur had said to that, “ _Privacy_? I’m worrying about _bacteria_ ,” and at everyone’s blank looks he said, “No, seriously, why don’t any of you people know about bacteria?”)

But Arthur stands in the micro-apartment’s kitchen area and frowns. 

Eames is busy being enthusiastic over the fact that the kitchen table is printed with the graphic of a chessboard. Everything in the apartment is white with periodic black accents. It helps make the space seem bigger, but also makes it feel a little bit like a spaceship. 

“Built-in _fun_ ,” Eames is saying to the contestant. “It’s brilliant.” 

“I particularly like how it’s a commentary on how one should work hard and also play games,” proclaims Alec. 

“One of your better ones,” Eames tells him. “But really what you should have said is that here, in the most chore-beleaguered part of the home, the room most prone to procrastinated clutter, you have introduced an element of fun, a constant reminder, even as you perform the drudgery of clearing a table, that there is the promise of leisure time always lurking at the end of your day.” 

“Exactly.” The contestant beams at Eames. 

Arthur says, because it’s his job to cut through the romantic spells Eames weaves because otherwise their house would have rivers with floating stepping stones instead of hallways, “There’s no oven.” 

“What?” The contestant looks dazed to be pulled away from Eames’s smile. 

Arthur sympathizes but gestures to the kitchen and says, “There’s no oven.”

“Well,” says the contestant. “There’s not really a lot of room.” 

“Darling, you have to compromise somewhere in a small space. I mean, what do you really need an oven for?” 

“The baking of cake batter,” Arthur says drily. 

“He’s terribly obsessed with bacteria,” Eames tells the contestant. 

“You can’t eat cake batter raw,” Arthur says to the contestant firmly. 

The contestant looks confused by this assertion. “I know. Because of the raw egg.” 

Arthur blinks in amazement. “Oh, my God. _Thank_ you.”


	25. Chapter 25

The next micro-apartment is entirely black—black walls, black floor, black ceiling, black furnishings—scattered over with sparkles of stars. It’s a striking effect, and the contestant rivals Eames for ability to paint a picture with words. Everything about the micro-apartment is completely absurd but the contestant speaks so earnestly about being out in the galaxy among the stars, about bringing the vastness of the universe inside, that Arthur can see Eames and Alec being charmed by it. He almost gets it. Except that he lays on his back on the floor as suggested and looks at the sparkling black all around him and feels like he’s in the middle of a black hole and could have a panic attack. The enormity of the galaxy is just as terrifying as it is inspiring. 

They go straight from that micro-apartment into what feels like an incredibly open, airy, _light_ space. There are _skylights_ , Arthur realizes. It’s the only design they’ve walked into that put in skylights, and the difference it makes in the space is astonishing. Arthur, for the first time, feels like he can breathe in the micro-apartment. 

And the micro-apartment is not clinical and sparse, far from the artificially bright white lacquer of the spaces Alec and Eames preferred. It’s done in warm, honey-toned wood and creamy accents—light but not cold—and Arthur feels immediately at home. He runs a hand over the scroll carved into the wood of one of the kitchen cabinets and actually hums, he likes it so much. 

“Tell us the concept,” he hears Eames prompt, and Arthur realizes that he’s gotten incredibly side-tracked with only one step into the micro-apartment. 

He hurries to catch up and hears Ariadne say, “I wanted it to feel inviting and welcoming without feeling too intrusive.”

Ariadne. Of course. Arthur had almost forgotten she was a contestant and not just a guardian pixie sprite. 

Ariadne continues, “The space is small enough that it needs to make room for you to fill it up, it shouldn’t fill up itself. So the design in a space like this should be as minimal as possible, I thought. But in minimizing the design, I didn’t want to sacrifice warmth. Too often, I think small spaces can feel cool because of the absence of feeling in the design. You don’t want your design to take up too much space but you do want it to be _there_. I mean, it’s got to take up _some_ space. Otherwise you might as well just hand someone an empty box. Last time I used fabric to create the inviting feeling I wanted, but that would have been overwhelming in this space, so I tried to warm up the color tone a bit instead. Keep it neutral, but warm neutral.” 

While Ariadne is talking, Arthur has been wandering through the micro-apartment, and he can’t help the fact that he suddenly exclaims, “Wait, this is Escher!” 

Because there are bookshelves on the wall, and the bookshelves are large books and medium-sized buildings and small people, and Arthur thinks it’s an obvious reference to “Still Life and Street.” At least, he thinks it is. Arthur fucking loves Escher, so maybe he’s seeing Escher where Ariadne didn’t mean it. 

But Ariadne says, “Yeah,” and looks delighted that he got it. “Escher’s my theme for the place. I figured if you’re going to have a small space, you should play with optical illusions and impossible architecture.” 

Now that Arthur’s looking for it, Escher is everywhere. Ariadne has arranged a mirror such that her tiny staircase up to the sleeping loft is reflected in a mimicry of the paradoxical staircases Escher drew, and there’s a half-wall separating the kitchen area from the living area that Ariadne has papered in Necker cubes to give the illusion of depth. And suddenly the oddly angled protrusions high on the wall from which Ariadne has hung a few plants dawn on Arthur. 

He scrambles up the stairs to the sleeping loft and perches on the bed and smiles as the hangers resolve themselves into the optical illusion of a Penrose triangle. 

“That is _fantastic_ ,” he says. 

“What is it?” Eames’s head pokes up over the edge of the sleeping loft. 

Arthur pulls him the rest of the way in, pointing across. “See what she did with the hangers?”

“They look like a triangle.” 

“Right. It’s called a Penrose triangle. It’s an impossible object. You can only create the optical illusion of one.” 

“Like a micro-flat that’s big enough to live in,” Eames says, and smiles, too. “An impossible object.” 

“You can only create the illusion of one,” Ariadne agrees. 

“So there are a bunch of optical illusions,” Alec says. “What’s the big deal?” 

“It’s supposed to be fun,” Ariadne tells him. 

Alec looks dubious about this but Arthur doesn’t fucking care because he actually feels like he could _live_ here. He loves this impossible space with its sly sense of humor and its paradoxes all around him. It’s like dream logic or something but not in an unsettling way, in a way that feels like coming home. It isn’t just clever, it’s _comfortable_. 

Eames clambers down from the sleeping loft and starts investigating the rest of the design, asking curious questions about color choice and furniture positioning. Arthur stays on the bed, and from that vantage point, he can appreciate that the lower living space is cordoned off with lots of half-walls. Ariadne hasn’t chopped the space up in a way that would make it feel small, but she has still managed to create some privacy in the space. If you wanted to curl up in a corner and pretend you were alone, you could. 

Plus, the bedding is nice and soft. 

And Arthur fucking loves the skylight idea. 

So of course Alec says, sounding disapproving, “Who told you that you could put skylights in?” 

“What?” Ariadne says blankly. 

“The skylights.” Alec points. “Who said they were allowed?” 

Ariadne looks confused. “They weren’t allowed?” 

“Well, no one else has put skylights in,” says Alec. 

“Maybe they didn’t think of it,” says Arthur from the bed, because he _fucking loves_ the skylights. 

“No one said we couldn’t put skylights in,” Ariadne says. “There wasn’t anything in the instructions about it.”

Alec looks up at the skylights and frowns. 

Arthur thinks this looks like it’s going to turn into A Thing.


	26. Chapter 26

“I think she should be disqualified,” is what Alec says as soon as they settle into the judging room. 

Yeah, definitely going to be A Thing, thinks Arthur. 

“You know what we need more of on this show?” remarks Eames. 

“Skylights?” drawls Alec. 

“Alcohol,” says Eames mournfully. “They do not give us nearly enough alcohol.” 

Arthur is inclined to agree with that. “There was nothing in the rules that said anything about skylights.” 

“That is such a you thing to say,” sneers Alec. 

“A me thing to say?” echoes Arthur. “You don’t even _know_ me!” 

“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to look at you and know that you like rules.” 

Arthur doesn’t even know what to make of this. “What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?” 

“I think we’re getting off-track,” inserts Eames. 

“You’ve been babbling about rules all day. Rules about bathrooms—”

“The rule that there should _be_ a bathroom? That we shouldn’t reside in our own waste? Christ, they knew that rule in, like, the Middle fucking Ages.” 

“Still a rule,” Alec says. 

“Mal!” Eames shouts out the door. “Can you bring us a lot of whiskey? And a copy of the rules?” 

“If we’re going to get obsessed with rules and disqualify people based on toilet locations,” remarks Alec, “then I think we should apply the rules equally and disqualify Arthur’s little pet contestant.” 

“She isn’t my pet contestant, she just designs nice rooms.” 

“How would you know?” Alec asks. “What is your training?” 

“My training is being a human being who lives in rooms. Designers don’t design in a vacuum. I’m the audience and my viewpoint counts.” Okay, so it’s just parroting back what Eames had said to him but you didn’t try to improve on a good Eames speech.

Mal appears in the doorway and she is frowning disapprovingly. “What is this about the rules?” 

“Yeah, the rules,” Eames says, “but let’s not forget the most important part of my request, which is _a lot of whiskey_.”

“I’m only bringing you whiskey if you agree to let me film the judging deliberations.” 

Since the judging deliberations are the only time they’re free of cameras—they end up recording little sound bites to justify the decisions after the fact—Arthur says immediately, “No.” 

Eames says, “Yeah, he’s right, fine, we’ll just take a copy of the rules.” 

“What rules?” Mal asks. “What are you talking about?” 

“I don’t know, the rules of the show,” says Eames. 

“Arthur is obsessed with rules,” Alec explains. “You know how it is.” 

“For someone obsessed with rules, he didn’t have a problem punching you, did he?” says Mal mildly. 

Arthur decides that he doesn’t really go for women but Cobb has a point and he’d definitely kiss Mal given the opportunity. 

Alec frowns and says, “We think one of the contestants broke the rules.” 

“What rule?” asks Mal. “The no fraternizing rule?” 

Arthur doesn’t move a muscle, and neither does Eames, and Alec just waves his hand and says, “No, not that rule.” 

Which relieves Arthur. He’d forgotten about the no fraternizing rule. And if Alec knew how much time he spent talking to Ariadne, he’d be pushing to get her thrown out of the competition, not just this particular challenge. 

“There are no other rules,” Mal says. 

“What were the rules for the challenge?” asks Alec. 

“You heard all the rules for the challenge. Eames read them. It was a single sentence. ‘Turn a one-hundred-square-foot space into a fully functioning apartment,’ wasn’t it?” 

“One of the contestants installed skylights,” says Alec. 

“Ariadne,” Mal says. “Yes, I know, I saw.” 

“Well, isn’t that against the rules?” demands Alec. 

Mal shrugs. “I don’t know. The rules, I remind you again, were a single sentence. And the only rule I care about is the no fraternizing rule. So unless anyone’s broken that rule?” 

Mal pauses to allow a response. Arthur doesn’t think that she looks at him during the pause. Arthur also doesn’t think that Mal doesn’t look at him during the pause. So Arthur doesn’t think Mal knows anything about how much Arthur has broken the no fraternizing rule. 

And Alec says, “Fine. Whatever. We’ll figure it out ourselves.” Which there is no way he would have done if he’d known how much Arthur had broken the no fraternizing rule. 

Mal just turns and leaves. Arthur steals a glance at Eames. Eames looks bored, because Eames is a champion actor and is never going to give away how precarious Arthur has made Ariadne’s position in the competition with his stupid panic attacks. 

Arthur takes a deep breath and says, “Fully functioning apartments need bathrooms. Can we at least agree on that?” 

Alec huffs but he says, “Okay. Fine. But the one with the toilet in the kitchen counts.” 

“And the one without an oven,” says Eames, because it’s clear he liked that one. 

“Fine. I’ll give you all of that,” agrees Arthur. “So can I have Ariadne’s skylights being permissible?” 

“How many apartments do you know have the ability to have skylights?” counters Alec. “The rules said they had to design an apartment. Apartments are stacked on top of each other.” 

“Maybe it’s a top-floor apartment,” Arthur says. “The rules didn’t say anything about which floor it was on.” 

“Can I suggest a compromise?” asks Eames. 

“If your compromise is that Arthur gets his way,” begins Alec hotly. 

Eames interrupts him calmly. “Ariadne stays in the running for the challenge but she can’t win. You can’t put her first when you write out your list.” 

Arthur considers. He’s instinctively annoyed that Ariadne should be punished for being creative and thinking outside the box, but at the same time he realizes that the skylights gave Ariadne a huge advantage over the other designs, at least in his perception. Eames’s compromise is a good one. 

“Fine,” he says. “Acceptable.” 

Alec rolls his eyes. “We all know I’m never going to win against your united front, but I don’t see what the big deal was about the design. It was a bunch of visual puns, basically.” 

“We all have our own taste,” says Arthur mildly, handing out the voting sheets. “Let’s just stop discussion and vote.” 

“I do have one question first, though,” says Eames. “Is an entirely black flat that you can’t really see to move around in fully functioning?”


	27. Chapter 27

The victor is the chessboard flat with no oven. Arthur is okay with that choice. And in a moment of cooperation, they all agreed that the poor contestant who forgot about the bathroom, while disqualified from consideration, shouldn’t be straight-up eliminated. Instead they eliminate the feather contestant. Ariadne does well and Arthur makes a point in his sound bite interview to praise her Escher references because he wants her to get full credit for that cleverness. 

They don’t really talk as they’re driven home, other than Eames saying, “Chinese? What do you say?” and Arthur saying, “Hmm, can we do Thai instead?” Eames calls the order in, and they’re barely through the door when the delivery arrives. Then they sit perched on the couch in the living room, plates cradled on laps, and Eames finds them some kind of random action movie on television. 

Arthur eats steadily and then puts his plate down and says, “Do you want to talk about Alec?” 

“Do you think we should?” asks Eames, glancing at him. “I thought we resolved it and we’re good.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. 

“Then.” Eames shrugs. 

“Thanks for not saying anything about me fraternizing with Ariadne,” Arthur says, after a second. 

Eames glances at him again, surprised this time. “I’d never throw you under the bus. You know that. But you do need to be careful. You know Alec has it out for you and you know he hates her because you obviously like her so much.”

“I know. I wish I could talk to her about how I’ve got to stop talking to her.” 

“Maybe I can get Yusuf to give her a message for you,” Eames suggests. 

“Would you? That would be good,” says Arthur. 

Eames nods. “I’ll ask him about it when we film again. I like her, you know. Her designs are good. I thought the Escher thing today was genius. And she makes you smile, so I’m a fan. We’ve only got a few more weeks of this, then you and she can be BFFs.” 

“BFFs, huh?” 

“Mmm. Talk to her about the scarves, though, would you? I’m not sure about the scarves.” 

“Asshole,” Arthur says fondly, and because Eames is done eating he curls up with his head on Eames’s lap. 

Eames is apparently caught up in the random movie, so he strokes his hand through Arthur’s hair but he doesn’t maintain the conversation, which is fine. Arthur closes his eyes and drifts a little bit and he only realizes he’s fallen asleep when Eames starts to gently jostle him. 

“Come curl up in bed,” he murmurs, tugging Arthur along. 

Getting ready for bed seems like a lot of effort when Arthur had been sleepy and comfortable but he forces himself through it and then he curls up and into Eames, tugging the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket up to his chin so the feathers can tickle at him. Eames has a tablet out and is scrolling his way through couches. 

“Aren’t you tired?” Arthur asks. 

“No,” Eames responds. “You are, clearly, and you’re lovely and warm so I thought I’d join you, but I was going to get some work done. Unless it’s going to bother you.”

“No, it’s fine,” says Arthur, because he doesn’t really care. He closes his eyes and Eames shifts every so often as he flags things and marks things and make various design-related notes for the project he’s working on. The room is warm and dim and Eames breathes next to him and Arthur hears himself say, “I think I feel bad for Alec.” 

Eames doesn’t say anything. 

Arthur says, “I don’t think he’s ever really himself. I don’t know who he is, but he said to me today…I don’t know, I feel bad for him, if he thinks that he has to play a role all the time.” 

“It’s a decision he made to do that,” Eames points out. 

“Yeah, but…” says Arthur lamely. He doesn’t really know why he’s talking about this. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about Alec Hart at all. So he says that. “I don’t know.” 

“You can play a role,” remarks Eames. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it. That’s a lesson I learned pretty early on.” 

Arthur kisses his shoulder. “You don’t play a role nearly as much as you pretend to.” 

“Underneath all of this bluster, I’m really just a shy, retiring, celibate monk at heart.” 

“If you’d been alive in the Middle Ages, you would have been, like, a monk who rose to the level of cardinal and slept with the Pope’s illegitimate daughter.” 

“I like this story,” Eames says, and noses his way behind Arthur’s ear. “Continue.” 

“And then you probably would have been exiled.”

“But then I’d shag all of the guards and escape.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow. “ _All_ of the guards?”

“I like to be thorough,” explains Eames. “But I’d find the most well-dressed guard, the one with dimples that he kept hidden most of the time, the one that rolled his eyes at me a lot and pretended not to like me, and I’d take him with me and we’d go and live on this tiny little rock of an island in the Mediterranean and we’d shag a lot and always have a bathroom that was separate from the living quarters because of rules about bacteria.” 

“What would we eat on our tiny little rock of an island?” 

“Olive oil?” suggested Eames. 

“Olive oil. We’re going to survive on a diet of olive oil?” 

“No, you’re right, we’d want the olive oil for other purposes. Maybe we’d raise sheep.” 

“So now we’re shepherds?” 

“Hot shepherds who slather themselves in olive oil and shag a lot.” 

“This story has a lot of holes.” 

“But a lot of potential as a porn flick. Why am I not in the porn industry?” 

“In all seriousness, I ask myself that question about you at least once a day.” 

Eames chuckles into his skin and strokes his hand across Arthur’s abdomen, not really in lust, more in a gently and soothingly possessive type way. He says, “Every decision Alec has ever made has been for his career. The decision to sleep with me was for his career. He was bewildered that it wasn’t how I made my decisions. He thinks it’s enormously irresponsible of both of us. I see why you feel bad for him, because life is scary and putting yourself out there is scary and _loving_ is scary. But he feels bad for _us_. He thinks he’s the one who’s got it right. And in a way that’s all that matters, right? As long as we feel we got life right, then who gives a fuck how other people choose to live their lives? I only give a fuck if it’s bothering you, and he bothered you, and so that makes me not feel bad for him, that makes me want to rip him limb from limb.” 

Arthur can’t believe now, in the cocoon of their bedroom, with Eames right next to him, that he ever for a second let Alec get under his skin enough to punch him. “He only bothered me because he insulted my suit. I mean, the nerve of a man in a fedora insulting my suit.”

“He also thinks he’s right about the fedora,” remarks Eames. 

Arthur is silent for a moment, brushing at Eames’s hair. Then he says, “We’ve totally got life right. There’s not a single thing I would change.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames consideringly. 

This surprises Arthur. “What would you change?” 

“I’d buy you a sex club,” says Eames. “And I’d make us film excellent period pornos in it.” 

“Oh, for fuck…” Arthur huffs and pushes his fleece-and-feather-boa blanket away so he can climb on top of Eames and kiss all of the breath out of him. 

“But I guess that can still happen,” Eames pants around Arthur’s kisses. “Something to aim for. A goal to achieve. I’m dreaming big.” 

“Eames, seriously, shut up,” says Arthur.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is now so many layers of meta that it's achieved meta-ception. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you to all the commenters in the comment parties who inspired so many of the fan tweets that accompany this episode. Special thanks to chocolamousse, who I know gave me the Emily Dickinson quote, and pureimaginatrix for the comment about it being a good thing to be a germophobe if you run a sex club. 
> 
> There are probably more direct references I'm missing but those were two that are occurring to me at the moment. Let me know what else you see!
> 
> ETA: I think thigmotaxis came up with the #eames4arthur tag originally!

Eames has a habit of disappearing on Viewing Day, apparently. And last Viewing Day Arthur was nervous but he was nervous in the abstract. This Viewing Day he is torturing himself by scrolling through Twitter and noting the anticipatory build-up to the episode. _What kind of suit do you think he’ll wear? #arthur4everything_ and _I hope he has to climb up on something again!! #arthur4everything_ and _I just spent an hour assessing all of the different ties Arthur has been seen in public wearing WHAT IS THIS SHOW DOING TO ME #arthur4everything_

Arthur hears their door open and shut and puts his phone down firmly and shouts out, “Where have you been? The show is almost—What the fuck?” Because Eames has appeared in the room with another present. 

“Viewing Day present,” Eames says cheerfully, handing it across. 

“No,” Arthur says, and shakes his head even as he accepts the gift. “I didn’t get you anything. I thought last week’s was a one-off.” 

“I’m trying to work off the sex club back dues I owe,” says Eames, perching on their coffee table to watch the unwrapping. 

“I don’t actually own a sex club,” Arthur says, “and you don’t actually owe me dues. It’s a joke.” 

“Hang on,” Eames says, picking up Arthur’s phone from where he’s set it down. He taps a bit on the screen and then hands it back to Arthur. 

Arthur reads the headline on the website Eames has called up. “We’ve found the location of Arthur’s top-secret underground sex club.” Arthur pauses and re-reads silently. Then he looks up at Eames. “They have found the location of a sex club that doesn’t exist. How?” 

“Maybe,” says Eames, “in an alternate universe, you’ve owned a sex club all this time and now our universes are colliding.” He meshes his fingers together and shows the result to Arthur, as if that is all the visual aid you need to understand the collision of alternate universes. 

“That makes no sense,” Arthur tells him. 

“Darling, it’s _science_. Like _bacteria_. Open your Viewing Day present.” 

“Eames, seriously,” Arthur sighs as he opens it, “this is very sweet, but you don’t need to…” It’s an Escher print, “Still Life and Street,” and Eames has framed it in a typical Eamesian way: matting printed with Necker cubes and Penrose triangles, and the frame itself is upholstered in a tweed fabric. It is, as with all of Eames’s designs, fun and playful and so very perfect for the recipient. Arthur knows he’s beyond lucky that the best designer he has ever seen knows him well enough that Arthur gets these incredible gifts. “Oh, fuck, it’s gorgeous, why do you have to get me gifts that are so impossible to turn down?”

Eames says, “For your office. I didn’t know you had an Escher thing, I would have gotten you one sooner.” 

“I studied him in college,” Arthur says. “I really liked all the paradoxical stuff, how one thing can be the opposite, depending on its perspective.” 

“Yes,” agrees Eames. “You would. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Now that I’ve thought about it, Escher’s very you.” 

“And Escher’s always trying to break rules,” says Arthur, satisfied, studying his print, “rules of physics and all that, so there.” 

Eames laughs and says, “Where’s your blanket?” 

“In the bedroom. Why?” 

“It’s your lucky blanket. You have to have the blanket here for the viewing.” Eames stands and jogs out of the room, apparently to retrieve the blanket. 

Arthur shakes his head and the show starts with a _Last time on Next Big Thing_ and Arthur calls out, “You’re missing the show!” 

Alec reads out “Design a coffee shop” and then after that there are mostly clips of Arthur frowning at the coffee shop designs, Arthur clambering his way onto the tall chair, Arthur rolling around on Ariadne’s cashmere couch. “Eleven designers remain!” the narrator intones cheerfully. “Who will be the next big thing?” 

Eames reappears in the room as the theme plays. He spreads the blanket out over Arthur and then says, “Make room for me.” 

Arthur shifts so Eames can get under the blanket with him. 

“What’d I miss?” 

“Just the previously bit,” says Arthur. “It was mostly me being, you know, me.” 

“Ah, delightful and charming. Arthur for everything.” 

Arthur tries to be surreptitious about checking the tag. _I’d forgotten what a thing of beauty Arthur’s unimpressed face is. #arthur4everything_ and _That’s it, show him climbing up on that chair again. #arthur4everything_ and _I was planning to do a shot every time Arthur looked hot, but I’m already drunk oops #baddrinkinggame #arthur4everything_

On-screen, Alec shouts “Artie!” across the room to Arthur. 

The shot is of Arthur’s back, and Eames facing Arthur. Eames glances up toward the camera, in Alec’s direction, and then you can see his lips move, although they’re too far away from the microphones for any sound to be picked up. 

“Artie!” shouts Alec again. “Over here!”

The camera zooms in on Eames’s face. He looks as if he’s going to burst out laughing. 

“It’s not funny,” Arthur tells Eames in real life, and elbows him gently. 

“It’s a little funny,” says Eames. “I bet your fans think it’s funny.” 

On-screen, Alec whistles and Arthur whips around and snaps, “ _What_?”

On Twitter, which Arthur checks, they are indeed _lol_ ing. _lmao why does he keep trying to call him Artie??? #arthur4everything_ Good question, thinks Arthur, and reads out loud to Eames, “The fact that Eames looks like he just wants a bucket of popcorn to enjoy the show is the best. Eames should host viewing parties.” And then, “Look, you’ve got a tag. Eames for viewing party host.” 

“That’s not as catchy as your tag,” says Eames. “It’s too unwieldy.” 

“You’ll quote whoever it is you’re quoting all the time,” Alec tells Arthur on-screen. “Nelson Mandela? Who is it you quote?” 

Arthur says flatly, “Oscar Wilde?” and onscreen Eames starts choking with laughter. 

Twitter says, _WHAT IS ALEC EVEN TALKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW? #arthur4everything_ and _This show is golden I can’t even you guys #arthur4everything_ and _I’m glad this is giving me an excuse to once again flail over Arthur knowing Oscar Wilde quotes #arthur4everything_ and _Eames sounds like he’s choking on his popcorn :D :D :D #arthur4everything #eames4viewingpartyhost_

On-screen Alec claps Arthur on the shoulder. Arthur sways a little bit and looks at the hand on his shoulder like he can’t believe it’s there. Alec says, “We need to develop a special handshake,” and Arthur says, “No,” and Alec says, “He’s hilarious,” and then “Can we figure out the lighting for my hat?” 

“Mal is an evil genius,” says Eames, and then, clearly reading over Arthur’s shoulder, “Why _don’t_ we have popcorn?” 

“Because you always show up late because you’re out buying me unnecessary gifts. Lovely gifts—I love them—but completely unnecessary.” 

Onscreen, there’s a shot of Eames, hands palms up as if he is weighing things, like he’s acting as the scales of justice, and he’s saying, “Alec and his hat. Me and my accent.” 

“Oh, Christ,” Arthur says in horror. “Why are we so bad at not having embarrassing conversations on-camera?” 

“It’s really anyone’s guess which of us you’ll choose,” continues Eames onscreen. “When this is done, you should go on ‘The Bachelor.’ I’m going to suggest it to Mal. She’s going to love the idea.” 

“Right now it’s not looking good for you coming out on top,” says Arthur drily. 

Onscreen Eames grins at him, tipping closer to him. He looks like he would eat Arthur up with a spoon if he could, and Arthur looks like he would let him. 

“I don’t know,” says Eames. “I like my odds.” 

Arthur watches them banter their way through quotations. “I don’t think you’re funny,” his onscreen self says, but he is practically giggling, pitched forward, close enough to Eames that if he shifted his head his nose would brush his cheek. Arthur doesn’t remember standing that close to Eames during the conversation. It occurs to him that he does these things unconsciously. 

“You think I’m hilarious,” says Eames onscreen, and Arthur watches himself as he flashes a smile at Eames, all dimples, his eyes bright and besotted. Arthur’s seen himself flirt with Eames on camera lots of times now, and he’s always struck anew by how obviously adoring he looks. Arthur would never admit it to Eames but he generally likes to think that he plays it cooler than that. Oh, well. 

“Well,” remarks Eames in real life, as the scene shifts to he and Arthur walking over to Alec together. “At least they cut out the bit about the contestant’s vagina.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur drily. “Thank Christ for small favors.” 

Twitter is in raptures. _Can Arthur be on The Bachelor and Eames be a contestant? Eames is a genius. #arthur4bachelor #arthur4everything_ and _Eames, darling, I bet you’d be okay with bottom, too. #arthur4everything_ and _THESE TWO KILL ME, OKAY? #deeeeeeeeeeead #arthur4everything_

“Tweet back that I’ll take top, bottom, whatever you want to give me. Just point me where to go,” says Eames. 

“I’m not tweeting that.”

“While you’re at it, tell them how good I am at orgies.” 

“Not doing that, either.” 

Eames huffs.  
Onscreen Arthur says to Alec, in quick succession, “Do not call me ‘Artie.’ Do not touch my shoulder. And we’re not doing a (beep) handshake, either.” 

Alec looks crestfallen. 

Arthur turns to Eames and commands crisply, “Open the envelope.” 

“I love it when you’re so down-to-business,” says Eames in real life. 

Twitter says, _I bet this is what he’s like in the sex club. #arthur4everything_ and _This show’s scripted, right? Where are they getting this stuff? #arthur4everything_. 

Meanwhile, onscreen Eames is working the crowd. “Darling? What do you say?” he says, grinning winningly at Arthur. 

Arthur just says, “Open the envelope.” 

Eames’s grin doesn’t waver. He says, “He pretends to be shockingly not fun here in public because he saves all the fun for the sex dungeon.” 

In the reaction shot, Arthur’s face is like a gathering thunderstorm. 

“That’s my favorite face you ever make,” Eames says gleefully. “It makes me want to tear your clothes off. Do it again.”

Arthur glares at him. 

“There you go, perfect,” says Eames, and kisses him playfully. 

Onscreen, Eames finally reads out the clue, and the show goes to its first commercial break. 

Twitter is having an intense discussion centered around two topics. The first topic is Arthur’s expressions. _Arthur’s face is a thing of great beauty and I want to carry him in my pocket and have him frown at all of the idiots I encounter every day. #arthur4everything_ “Primarily why I date you,” Eames remarks in response to that. 

The second topic is the sex club. _Why must they tease us so with this sex club thing? How do we get invitations? Can we Google it? What do we think it’s called? #arthur4everything_ and _Who else do you think hangs out at this sex club? Is it only designers or could we get Sebastian Stan in on the action?_ and _WHERE IS THIS SEX CLUB I NEED IT IN MY LIFE #arthur4everything_ Several people helpfully respond with _Oh! People think they’ve found the sex club!_ and links to the article Eames had shown him. 

Eames says, “There is no sex club in existence that Sebastian Stan doesn’t belong to. He’d better be on our membership rolls.” 

“This is ridiculous,” says Arthur, and tweets, _Sorry to disappoint everyone, but I *do not* own a sex club._

Eames retweets the tweet and then adds _LRT But that’s what he’d say if he did own a sex club, so…_

“That’s not helping,” Arthur says. 

“Oh, my God,” says Eames, “it’s that sexy-as-hell look again, come here.” 

“Ugh,” says Arthur, even as he lets Eames haul him against his chest. “Why are you so ridiculous?” 

The episode comes back on, and there’s lots of drama about the designs that Arthur and Eames had known nothing about it. Ariadne’s decision to put in skylights was apparently controversial even before Alec had raised an issue with it, with the contestants complaining over it mightily. One of the contestants who keeps snipping about it the most is the contestant who forgot to put in the bathroom. 

“Maybe,” says Arthur, “if she’d worried less about Ariadne’s design, she would have remembered a bathroom.” 

Ariadne is cheerfully dismissive of the skylight controversy. She says they’re making drama over nothing and instead spends her time talking enthusiastically about Escher and optical illusions. The paint-it-black contestant goes through a dozen coats of black paint before she’s happy, and then she doesn’t have time to do anything else with the space. The doomed feather contestant heaps feathers everywhere and doesn’t seem to have a plan other than to say, over and over, “I want there to be feathers.”

“We eliminated the right person,” Eames decides frankly. 

It’s weird to go directly into the judging without any of the drama that came before it. There were no cameras to capture Arthur punching Alec, or the fallout from that, or Arthur fraternizing with Ariadne, or Eames being sweet and comforting him, or Arthur backing Eames up against a wall to grope him a little bit. Instead, the episode just moves smoothly into the three of them standing in the feather apartment. 

And even though the filming skipped everything to cause it, the tension on the screen is palpable. 

Twitter notices, of course. _What the heck happened, do you think? #arthur4everything_ and _Sex club outing gone bad since the challenge announcement? #arthur4everything_ and _Does Alec’s face seem kind of swollen to you? #arthur4everything_

“Fucking observant,” Arthur mumbles, scrolling through. At least there are a couple of tweets actually about the design. _But no, guys, seriously, what the heck with all the feathers???? #arthur4everything_ and _Feathers are for the hope that sits in your chest, not for micro-apartments. #shoutouttoemilydickinson #arthur4everything_

Onscreen Eames says, “It’s about flight. It’s about how we ground ourselves. We have the means to be _more_ than we are in scattered debris all around us, and we never seize the day and take what already is all around us, in profusion, and make ourselves that little bit more. We are surrounded, every day, by the tools we need to take flight, and we never stop to see them.” 

“You sold me on that stupid apartment,” Arthur tells him honestly. 

“Good,” says Eames. “That’s my job. And it’s a flat.” 

Twitter agrees that Eames killed it. Most of the tweets just say _EAMES_ or _BABY_. One is _#arthur4everything #eamesFTW_ “Eames sold me on that,” Arthur reads to him. “Probably Eames could sell me on living in a Dumpster.” 

“Probably,” Eames agrees. 

“I should tell them all about how you convinced me to live in an old shopping center.” 

“Darling, _you_ convinced _me_ of that,” Eames reminds him. “I asked you to find me a regular old house. You came up with this all on your own.” 

Onscreen Eames is saying, “That’s how it’s done. That’s what makes a good designer. Sell the whole experience. Make them want to buy the story. That’s how you do it. Just like that.” 

And even though Mal cut off the Alec-specific portion of the speech, Twitter still gets it. _Ooh, burn_ , proclaims Twitter, and _Did anyone else get the feeling that was meant for Alec and not the contestant???_

They flip around the order of the judging, so that Eames’s harsh, clipped comments don’t pile up all in a row the way they did the actual day. It helps a bit to dispel the impression that Eames was upset about something, and because the tension level goes in and out, up and down, Twitter has a hard time making up an explanation for what was happening. They didn’t use any film of Arthur talking Eames down, either, which Arthur appreciates but which also lends more incompleteness to the picture. 

“Don’t fall out of that,” Arthur warns Eames onscreen, as Eames leans down over a sleeping loft. “And you think this place is functional?” 

Eames makes his joke about energetic sex and keeping your hat on and there’s a reaction shot of Alec and Twitter comments about how Eames has been on fire with regard to Alec and continues to wonder what happened there. 

Arthur onscreen frets about bathrooms and toilets and bacteria and Twitter says, _Poor Arthur, why does no one share his concern about bacteria? #arthur4everything_ and _NO TOILETS NEXT TO REFRIGERATORS ARTHUR IS RIGHT #arthur4healthinspector #arthur4everything_ and _Hey, it’s important to be a germophobe when you’re running a sex club #arthur4everything_ and _Arthur’s sex club is the only sex club whose cleanliness I would trust. #arthur4everything_

And then they reach Ariadne’s apartment. Arthur thinks it looks just as gorgeous onscreen as it did in person. Ariadne speaks intelligently about the design, but the camera tracks Arthur as he moves through the space, wonder and delight evident on his face. Arthur clambers to the top of the sleeping loft, and Twitter exults about _REQUIRED CLIMBING MOMENT FOR ARTHUR YES #arthur4everything_.

Eames edges closer to him on the couch and murmurs, “I actually think it’s even better on the screen than it was in person.” 

“It’s an impossible object,” Arthur explains to Eames onscreen. “You can only create the optical illusion of one.” 

“Like a micro-flat that’s big enough to live in,” replies Eames. “An impossible object.” 

“You can only create the illusion of one,” Ariadne agrees. 

_OT3_ , says Twitter. _I love how much Arthur loves Ariadne’s designs. #arthurandari4everything_ and _Aw, the only other time Arthur ever looks that happy is when he’s looking at Eames. #arthur4everything_

“So there are a bunch of optical illusions,” Alec says onscreen. “What’s the big deal?” 

“It’s supposed to be fun,” Ariadne tells him. 

Twitter is a chorus of _boo_ and _ugh_.

Onscreen, the episode shifts to what should have been Arthur’s sound bite for the judging, but they’ve stuck it here because it’s all about Ariadne and Escher and the brilliance of the whole design. “She’s made you feel like you’re living surrounded by paradoxes,” enthuses Arthur onscreen. “It’s literally like living in a dream.” 

Real-life Eames kisses Arthur’s head like he’s adorable and then tweets, _Pay attention to Arthur. Go look up Escher. #arthur4everything #butespeciallyarthur4escher_

Everyone on Twitter seems to agree that they kicked off the right contestant. There is a strong Ariadne contingent that’s sad she didn’t win the challenge and that kicks off a whole debate about whether or not the rules prohibited skylights. Arthur, while Eames is in the bathroom, sits in bed and scrolls through Twitter and takes note of the side discussions about his suit and his tie and what the heck was up between Alec and Eames. 

What the heck was up between Alec and Eames, thinks Arthur. He’s the one who got into the altercation with Alec but to viewers of the show it looks like it was all Eames. Because Eames was upset on Arthur’s behalf. And Arthur’s pleased that the second episode of the show, if not quite as heady as the first, still seems to be a hit. But he’s mostly thinking that he doesn’t really give a fuck because he’s in bed waiting for Eames, Eames who loves him so much that it threw off Eames’s equilibrium to even think about Arthur being upset, and Arthur figures that he wins everything ever. 

Eames, thinks Arthur, is the fucking best and Arthur doesn’t tell him that a whole lot. Mostly because Eames tells himself that often enough, but Arthur clambers out of bed and goes to his office and takes a picture of his Escher print. When he gets back to the bedroom, still composing his tweet, Eames is artfully throwing his discarded clothing around the room in lieu of actually _putting it in the laundry_ and Arthur is in a good mood so even that seems adorable. 

So Arthur gives him a quick, fond kiss and says, “You’re the best boyfriend.” 

Eames looks wary. “Okay. Thank you. What have I done?” 

“Been a good boyfriend,” Arthur smiles at him, letting his dimples show. “Get into bed and I’ll reward you.” Arthur gestures toward the bed. 

“Excellent,” says Eames, and scrambles into bed. 

Arthur pauses to finish sending his tweet. _Escher print_ , it reads. _Gift from Eames. This is why I keep him around._

“What’s that you’re doing?” Eames pouts. “I thought you were going to reward me.” 

“First I have to deal with my adoring public,” drawls Arthur. 

Eames picks up his own phone and reads Arthur’s tweet and replies back, _I keep you around for the sex club. #arthur4everything_

Arthur rolls his eyes and sighs and replies to the tweet with _#eames4arthur_

And Eames says, “Darling,” with his voice all soft and looks at Arthur as if he’s done some kind of incredible amazing thing. 

Arthur crawls into bed and says, “I fucking adore you.” 

“Good,” says Eames. “My nefarious plan to woo you with slick charm is working.” 

Arthur smiles and kisses him.


	29. Chapter 29

Arthur arrives home in the evening before the day they’re supposed to film the next challenge. He had been out dragging an impossible-to-please couple around from house to house. Sometimes couples like that were delightful puzzles to unlock, but Arthur thought this couple was just determined not to like anything so that they could say that they’d gotten themselves a famous real estate agent and he _still_ couldn’t find them a new house. Today was the kind of day where he wished he had Eames’s magical ability to make people fall in love with things. 

“Eames?” Arthur calls, when he walks in the door to find the living areas of their house deserted. Eames had been spending the day “designing from home,” which meant he should have been in the living room watching _EastEnders_ , surrounded by the enormous mess he would have made. There’s evidence Eames was there—his tablet is on the coffee table, the television is on, magazines and sketches are scattered over the floor—but Eames is decidedly not there. 

Arthur turns the television off and calls again, “Eames?” taking the stairs to their offices. But Eames isn’t in either office. Arthur, confused, backtracks back to the kitchen. No note. What the fuck? 

He tries the last room he can imagine Eames being in, which is their bedroom, thinking that he supposes he can go check the public rooms after that. Eames isn’t usually in their bedroom unless they’re sleeping, but Arthur thinks it’s worth a try. 

Eames is a huddled mound under the covers in their bed, and Arthur’s eyebrows flicker upwards. Eames isn’t much of a napper. In fact, Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eames nap. Eames almost has too much energy to even sleep at night when he’s supposed to be sleeping. 

Arthur stands in the doorway, uncertain. Eames is breathing—he can hear him—so it’s not like he’s _dead_ , and if Eames felt unwell enough to crawl into bed, Arthur doesn’t really want to disturb him from his rest. But still, he feels uneasy knowing Eames is in bed. 

Eames solves the problem by croaking dramatically, “Darling?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur confirms. “Are you not feeling well?” 

“I am _dying_ ,” Eames announces with conviction. 

“Probably not,” Arthur says, but it’s true that he’s never seen Eames behave like this before, so it’s got to be bad. “What’s the matter?” He walks into the room and switches on the lamp by the bed so he can see. 

“I have been poisoned,” Eames says. 

He does look awful. Not pale so much as green-gray, and his hair is matted, and his lips are chapped. Arthur brushes his hair off his forehead so that he can test for a fever. Eames isn’t warm but he is clammy. “Poisoned by who?” Arthur asks. 

“Like a Roman emperor,” says Eames. 

“Like a what?” 

“Roman emperors were poisoned a lot, you know. I guess they had a lot of poison in ancient Rome.”

“I think they just committed a lot of murder in ancient Rome. And I think it’s far more likely you’ve been poisoned by one of your terribly unhealthy eating practices. Did you have raw cake batter for lunch?” 

Eames gasps. “This is your bacteria, isn’t it? You have sent your bacteria to do this to me.” 

“I don’t have much control over bacteria.” 

“Can you kill them for me?” 

“The bacteria? I’d have to bake you an oven for that.” 

“That’s okay,” says Eames. “I’m okay with dying right now.” 

“I’m not, though. I mean, I haven’t even heard back from Sebastian Stan yet about the sex club invitation. I can’t lose you until I’ve got your replacement lined up.” 

“Darling, I want you to have Sebastian Stan once I’m gone. You deserve him.” 

“Yeah, but I want you. I guess I’ll just have to nurse you back to health.” Arthur kisses his forehead. 

“Don’t kiss me right now,” Eames says. “I’m so gross.” 

“You are but that is how much I love you. I’m going to get you Gatorade.” 

“I can’t even keep water down at the moment.” 

“Then we will work you up to Gatorade,” says Arthur cheerfully. “Try to sleep, I’ll check on you later.” 

***

Eames is not dying but Arthur can see why he thinks that he is because he is clearly viciously ill. But by midnight he is keeping down water and by 3 am Arthur has cautiously started him on Gatorade and by 6 am Eames is sitting up in bed complaining about infomercials and by 9 am Eames is sound asleep and Arthur, who spent the night curled up on the chaise in their bedroom, feels horrible. Not like he’s coming down with Eames’s illness, just like he’s exhausted from both the all-nighter and from the worry. He watches Eames sleep, counting out his breaths, relieved that he has color in his face and looks less drawn and gaunt. He’ll make him toast, thinks Arthur. Dry toast…

Arthur wakes with a start to his phone ringing and scrambles for it, answering it blindly. “Hello?” 

“Where _are_ you?” snaps Mal. 

Always a mistake to answer a phone without looking, thinks Arthur, and rubs at his eyes. “I’m home. Why?” 

“Because the two of you are supposed to be _here_. _Filming_. But the driver rang your doorbell over and over and nothing happened.” 

Because Arthur had disconnected the doorbell. Oops. 

“And he wouldn’t call you because he’s an idiot, so he just came back here without you. Now we are way behind because you don’t answer your door.” 

“Oh, fuck,” says Arthur, looking across at Eames, who is apparently dead to the world enough that he still hasn’t stirred. “We can’t film today.” 

“What? Why not?” Mal demands. 

“Eames is sick. He had some kind of twenty-four-hour virus thing, I think, and he needs to spend today in bed drinking lots of fluids.” 

“And what are you doing?” 

“Me?” echoes Arthur blankly. “I’m…taking care of Eames.” 

“No, you have to come here so we can at least have two judges for the challenge reading. Otherwise it will just be Alec and it will look ridiculous.” 

“Alec would love it. He’d be the center of attention,” Arthur points out. 

“See you in thirty minutes,” says Mal and hangs up the phone on him. 

Arthur curses and considers. He would just forget about it, except that he does feel a weird responsibility for the show, and it’s only the challenge filming so it shouldn’t take long. Especially not if they’re getting Alec into position now. 

Arthur jumps in and out of the shower and comes out to find Eames awake, curled up in bed watching a talk show. 

“So. If you’re feeling a bit better, I think I’m going to go film,” Arthur says, pulling a sweater over his shirt. He can’t be bothered to go full-suit today. 

“Filming,” Eames repeats. “I’d forgotten about that.” 

“Mmm.” Arthur pauses by the side of the bed and studies him. “How do you feel?” 

“Like I was hit by a truck. I’m going to sleep for a thousand years. I’m only up now because I heard you in the shower and wanted to say hello.” 

“Well, hello,” says Arthur, and pushes his hair off his forehead so he can kiss it. “I think sleep sounds like a good idea. I’ll bring you fresh Gatorade and I think I’ll bring a sleeve of crackers and leave them here in case you get hungry.” 

“No, I’m never eating again,” Eames says. “Eating is a bad, terrible, evil thing.’ 

“Are you going to be okay?” asks Arthur. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.” 

“No. Go. You’ve been lovely staying here with me with all of my disgusting bacteria. You should have stayed in a hotel last night.” 

“Eames. Of course I wasn’t going to leave you while you’re sick.” 

“I’m okay. I’m going to sleep.” 

“Your phone is right here.” Arthur shows him. “If you need me, for anything at all.” 

“Make sure not to punch Alec,” says Eames. “I can’t handle the idea of you being irresistibly sexy right now.” 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am not finding sex with you tempting right now.” 

“My life is over,” says Eames in despair. “Leave me on a rock for eagles to claw out my eyes.” 

“I need to monitor what you’re reading and watching more closely,” says Arthur. 

“And when the eagles claw out my eyes, you should take them and preserve them and leave them by your bed so that I can always be watching you.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Arthur, “go to sleep.” 

“And that way when you take Sebastian Stan to bed he can be like, ‘What are those creepy eyes?’ and you can say, ‘Those belonged to the last man who shared my bed with me. I sent my bacteria to attack him and then left him on a rock so eagles could eat him.’”

“I don’t think that will make Sebastian Stan want to sleep with me.” 

“Sebastian Stan has no sense of adventure.” 

“Do you have any wise words you want me to tell the contestants?” 

Eames considers, then says, “Flavored lube is always a good idea.”

“Okay,” sighs Arthur. “I’m going now.”


	30. Chapter 30

Arthur tweets on his way to the studio. _Eames is very sick and will miss filming today. All that raw cake batter has caught up with him._ He adds, _He’s probably going to be bored and lonely while I’m filming, so you should tweet him lots of photos of things he loves._ He considers, then taps out, _He loves hideous shirts, well-designed rooms, modern art, and Vegas. Try to avoid sending him any photos of food. #eamesvsbacteria #getwellsoon_

Arthur feels a little bit better about leaving Eames alone after that. If Eames wakes up grumpy and out-of-sorts, maybe he’ll check Twitter and be pleasantly surprised. 

Mal descends on him as soon as he arrives. “Good. You’re here. The casual look works for you. Hurry into makeup.” 

“Eames is doing better, thanks for asking, he’ll be very touched by your concern,” says Arthur, as Mal shoves him toward Julia. 

“Tell him not to drink so much alcohol at your orgies,” says Mal dismissively. 

“It’s not a hangover,” says Arthur, as Julia goes to work. “And we don’t have orgies.” 

“Not what I hear from Sebastian Stan,” says Mal. 

Arthur is bewildered. “I don’t even _know_ Sebastian Stan. What the hell?” 

“You don’t have a sex club worth a damn if it doesn’t have Sebastian Stan, though,” Julia tells him wisely. 

“I don’t have a sex club,” Arthur tells her. “But if I did, it would be a fucking good sex club and it would have Sebastian Stan.” 

“Alec has an idea,” says Mal. 

Dread settles in Arthur’s stomach. Or maybe he’s just catching Eames’s virus. “If this idea involves me in a fedora, I don’t want to hear it,” says Arthur. 

“No, he thinks we should do more interviews with the judges.” 

Arthur snorts. “Of course he does. He thinks he’s the star of the show.” 

“These bags under your eyes, Arthur,” says Julia, and shakes her head at him sadly. 

“I was up all night with Eames. In not the fun way that that sounded.” 

“You _are_ the star of the show,” Mal says. “You’re why people are watching. They are fascinated by the dynamic. They can’t get enough of it.” 

“So you want me to give me an interview saying my boyfriend fucked Alec and then dumped him for me and it’s all a little awkward?” 

“It’s a professional disagreement,” Mal suggests. 

“No, it’s literally that Eames couldn’t keep it in his pants.” 

“Yusuf!” Mal shouts off to the side. “Can we get Arthur some playback?” 

“Playback of what?” Arthur asks. 

“While we were waiting for you, we interviewed Alec. Do you read his Twitter?” 

“Not since he spread the stupid sex club rumor, no.” 

“You should read it,” Mal says. “You’ll get what he’s going for.” 

Arthur sighs and digs out his phone and holds it up at an unnatural angle while Julia ducks under and around him to deal with his hair. _Arthur and I have such fun poking at each other! He’s a hoot! I have to keep reminding him to find the ‘Hart’ in the designs! #nextbigthing_ Arthur doesn’t track the nextbigthing hashtag. He’s clearly a horrible judge who only cares about the hashtag with his own name in it. Oh, God, he’s practically as self-centered as Alec. 

Arthur clicks on the hashtag. They’re mostly serious, straightforward tweets about the contestants, who people are rooting for, who people think are stupid. There are a few people using the hashtag on responses to Alec, most of them saying things like, _You’ll get through to Arthur eventually! He could use more Hart in his life!!!_ There is literally no end to the amount of puns people will make with Alec’s name in them, thinks Arthur. 

Arthur sighs and puts his phone away and says, “Fine. It’s all a professional disagreement. Why do we have to interview about this? Doesn’t it come across clearly enough on the show? He and I have different taste.” Arthur shrugs. 

“But you have to explain the black eye,” says Mal. 

“I have to explain the what?” says Arthur, and then Yusuf shows up with his camera. 

“All set up for playback,” he tells Mal. 

Mal beckons to Arthur. 

Julia says, “It’s okay, I’m done. Try not to schedule an orgy the night before filming next time.” 

Arthur sighs heavily and doesn’t even bother to correct her, as he gets up and goes over to the camera. 

On the playback, Alec is sporting an impressive black eye. 

“We can’t cover that with makeup?” Arthur asks. 

“We actually used the makeup to play it up,” Julia says helpfully. 

“Why?” 

“Listen,” Mal says, pointing to the playback. 

Alec says cheerfully, “It’s actually a very intense profession. Disagreements can get very heated. They can even get physical.” He laughs lightly and gestures to his black eye. “I mean, Arthur didn’t really mean this, but you would be surprised the lengths people will go to to defend an aesthetic. It can be hard to hear criticism. And, of course, Arthur’s not really a designer so he has an even harder time accepting that sometimes he has…difficulty seeing the ‘hart.’” Alec actually makes a heart with his hands as he says this. 

Arthur frowns and commands, “Turn that fucking camera on me, I have things to say.”


	31. Chapter 31

Alec says, “I heard that Eames was sick.” Alec’s voice is the poster child for concern. If you looked up _concern_ in the dictionary, there would be an instruction to find an audio file of Alec’s voice. And Alec looks as if he is going to clasp a hand to Arthur’s shoulder in sympathy. 

So Arthur says, “Do not touch me. Yes, he is sick. So it’s just us for today. And I am not in the mood. What the fuck with ‘this is a disagreement over _aesthetics_ ’?” Arthur gestures to Alec’s black eye. 

Alec actually looks blank. “Well, I think you come across better if we say that than if we say that you just go around randomly punching people.” 

“I don’t just—Never mind. Let’s just get this over with. Are you in prime fedora lighting position?” 

“What do you mean?” asks Alec. As if he isn’t holding himself in the carefully artificial pose he is because it’s prime fedora lighting position. 

“Okay,” says Arthur, who is too fucking exhausted to deal with any of this. “Can we have the envelope?” 

Mal hands the envelope across. 

Arthur says, “I’m going to assume we’re filming since all of my personal conversations always get put on television because of how constant the filming is.” 

Mal nods. 

“Who’s going to open the envelope?” Alec asks. “I mean, it’s your turn, but maybe we should—”

Arthur rips open the envelope. 

Alec looks startled. “You just…opened the envelope.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “That is something that can be done really very quickly and easily.” Arthur turns to the contestants. “Sorry Eames isn’t here, he’s sick, he sends a very inappropriate piece of advice I’m not going to repeat, and here is your challenge: ‘Design a bedroom.’ Okay, good luck, I’m going home.” Arthur hands the envelope to Alec. 

Alec looks stunned. So do the contestants. 

One of them—the one who made the black micro-apartment last time—says, “That’s it?” 

“It’s an opening of an envelope,” Arthur says. “It doesn’t need to take twenty minutes.” 

“We didn’t even get to explain about the black eye,” Alec says, and turns to the contestants. “Some of you may be wondering about my black eye.” 

Arthur sighs. “I did the stupid interview thing you wanted me to give about the black eye.” Arthur gestures over to Yusuf. 

“But they won’t see that until the episode airs, after the challenge is already over, and surely they want to know now,” says Alec smoothly. 

“Fine,” says Arthur. “I punched him.” 

There is absolutely no reaction to this. Frankly, none of the contestants seem the least bit surprised. They were way more shocked by Arthur’s ability to rip open an envelope without Dramatic Pauses. 

That doesn’t stop Alec from holding up a hand as if to calm a riot and saying, “Shocking, shocking. I know. But this is a lesson to all of you.” He rests his hand dramatically upon his chest, over his heart, and Arthur can feel the pun looming. “There is so much _hart_ in design. And I don’t just mean me. Feelings get involved, emotions can run high, and—”

“And obnoxious, rude, idiotic people can insult your boyfriend in your presence for no reason other than a complete and utter inability to stay professional and out of other people’s personal lives,” cuts in Arthur, with a brief glare. 

This starts a murmur of reaction in the crowd of contestants. 

Alec falters. He obviously hadn’t expected Arthur to tell the _truth_. Arthur actually isn’t sure Alec would recognize the truth if it bit him on the ass. Alec lives so deep in his own PR machine that he can’t actually recognize genuine emotion, or he wouldn’t go anywhere near Arthur’s feelings for Eames. 

Arthur thinks maybe this is the problem. Maybe Alec sincerely doesn’t realize why Arthur was upset that day. Maybe Alec needs it spelled out. 

He spells it out. “You want to start fucking ridiculous rumors about me and sex dungeons and orgies, fine, go right ahead. Don’t go near Eames. Not even a _step_ in his direction.” 

Alec’s eyes cut over to the contestants, who are rapt with attention. He tries for an easy-going smile, but his voice is cold. “Arthur for violent threats, eh?” 

“Arthur for Eames,” says Arthur, and stalks out of the studio.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, btw, the A/E relationship writing theme song for me for this fic, in case you want to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvW9E2606Oc
> 
> Thank you to Aja for the fanfiction idea!

Arthur texts Eames from the network car. _Done. On my way home._

Eames responds immediately with, _That was fast._ and then _Thank you for my Twitter gifts._

Oh, good, so that worked. Arthur checks Twitter, and Eames has received a steady stream of tweets. Most of them ignore Arthur’s list of what Eames likes, because most of them, he realizes in surprise, are photos of him. _Arthur says you don’t feel well and we should tweet you photos of things you love. So here’s some Arthur for you!_ reads one of the tweets, and that tweet is not alone. A lot of them say similar things. Arthur scrolls through them and feels oddly touched that so many people so blithely accept that he is the thing Eames loves most. 

Eames has one tweet in response. _Feeling much better now! Thank you for all the lovely gifts! #arthur4eames_

Arthur stares at the hashtag and says, “Fuck,” because otherwise he might cry. Eames has no way of knowing that Arthur just said that. In fact, looking at the timestamp, Eames tweeted it before Arthur said it. Eames just _knew_ that it was how Arthur felt. 

Eames is sitting up in bed when he gets home, his tablet in his lap. That meant that he felt well enough to get out of bed to go retrieve it in the living room, and Arthur registers this is a good sign. 

Eames says, “Hi. That was quick. How’d it go?” 

“I can open a fucking envelope without turning it into a Cecil B. DeMille production,” says Arthur, and kicks off his shoes so he can do exactly what he wants to do, which is crawl into bed and curl up next to Eames. 

“Oh,” Eames says in surprise, even as he adjusts himself to make room for Arthur. “Hello. You okay?” 

Arthur nods against him. 

“Because I’m still pretty disgusting, in case you didn’t notice.” 

“I noticed.” 

“Hmm.” Eames sounds speculative. “So what did Alec do?” 

“He’s making a big production out of this black eye thing.” 

“Is it impressive?” 

“Of course,” says Arthur. “I don’t throw punches I don’t mean.” 

“Did you punch him again?”

“No. I…I had to give an interview about it.” 

“About the punch?”

Arthur nods. 

“What did you say?” 

“Something about violence being an unacceptable way to resolve issues.” 

“Very positive-role-model of you.” 

“Something about you being fantastic.” 

“Required in every good speech,” says Eames approvingly. 

“Yeah,” says Arthur, and kisses Eames’s earlobe, because he’s not lovesick enough to be kissing Eames’s mouth at the moment. “How do you feel?”

“Hungry,” says Eames. “Because my stomach apparently has no long-term memory and has forgotten entirely how food is our mortal enemy.” 

“Your stomach just wants you to keep living. Your stomach and I are allies.” 

“Tell me other of my body parts you have an alliance with,” says Eames. 

“Fishing for compliments,” Arthur notes. 

“Always. You know me. I’m shameless. And weak. Weak with illness. Like a recovering Roman emperor. I need my gladiator to stay near to keep me safe from renewed assassination attempts whilst I am a weak recovering kitten.” 

“Is this another porno you’re working on?” 

“Darling, I have discovered something.” 

“Something about the porn industry?” 

“Something about us.” 

“That we should be in the porn industry?” 

“Thank you, by the way, for asking people to send me lovely things on Twitter. Most of the things were about you.”

“I know,” Arthur says, vaguely embarrassed. “I didn’t tell them to—”

“It’s fine. Hush. This is what I’m trying to tell you: People write _stories_ about us.” 

“Stories?” Arthur echoes. 

“For instance, there is an entire story, darling, where we are _hot shepherds_ who _use a lot of olive oil_.” Eames waggles his eyebrows at Arthur in a leer that isn’t quite up to his usual par. “I _told_ you that was a good idea.” 

“Okay, no more Internet for you,” Arthur says, and takes his tablet away. 

“There’s a story where you own a sex club and you hire me as extra security. It’s pretty good.” 

“Everything about this conversation is alarming. I’m going to make you toast and get you more Gatorade.”

“Can I have tea?” asks Eames hopefully. 

“Very, very weak tea.” 

“American tea,” says Eames, and makes a face. 

“If you don’t behave, I’m going to send more bacteria to attack you.” 

Eames snags him by his sleeve before he can roll out of bed, tugs him back in. “You don’t fool me for a second. I know your secret.” 

“What secret?” asks Arthur patiently. 

“Your secret that you are a huge, romantic, caretaking softie who will not blink at lovingly mopping sweat off my brow while I am being the least attractive, least sexy person in the history of time.” 

“Not true,” says Arthur. “The history of time is a long time. There’s probably less attractive and less sexy people lurking in history. Like, I bet caveman times were not a good time for attractive and sexy people.” 

“You were probably a hot caveman. You probably wore all of the best furs and invented shaving just so you could show off your dimples. You probably invented hair gel, too.” 

“I wasn’t ever a caveman,” says Arthur. 

“I bet I can find a story on the Internet where you’re a caveman.”

“I’m canceling our wifi,” Arthur says lightly, as he rolls off the bed. 

“I’ll use my phone,” Eames says. 

“Canceling our data plans, too,” says Arthur, and then, because he feels like it, he winks at Eames before he leaves the room. 

“Don’t start winking!” Eames shouts after him. “I cannot handle it in my weakened state.” 

Arthur is still chuckling as he fills Eames’s tea kettle. And then he takes a picture, because he can’t resist it. _Tea and toast for the patient. #arthur4eames_


	33. Chapter 33

“Eames, dear heart!” Mal exclaims when they arrive to film the judging day, brushing kisses over his cheeks. “We missed you! That is what happens when you drink cheap alcohol, though. You must splurge on good champagne next time, no?” 

“It wasn’t a hangover,” Eames says. “Arthur sent an army of bacteria to attack me to teach me a lesson about cake batter but it backfired on him and instead I learned an important lesson about lubricants throughout history.” 

“Are you going to add a historic exhibit to the sex club?” asks Mal seriously, as if this is something she actually expects to happen. 

“Arthur believes that all activities should involve learning,” Eames replies. “Including orgies. We run educational orgies at our sex club.” 

Mal shrugs and waves her hand as if she’s lost interest in the details of their entirely nonexistent sex club and scurries off to some emergency she’s apparently spotted somewhere else. 

“This sex club sounds more and more dull,” remarks Julia. “Looking a bit pale, Eames.” 

“I was ill,” Eames informs her. “I was ill unto _dying_.”

“He is even more dramatic than usual when he’s sick,” says Arthur. 

“Bacteria are evil,” Eames continues, as if Arthur hasn’t said anything at all. “They lurk everywhere. They lurk in _cake batter_.” 

“Not alcohol,” says Julia. 

Eames blinks. “What?” 

“Bacteria can’t live in alcohol. Alcohol kills bacteria. Keep still.” 

Eames slants Arthur an accusatory glare while keeping his head still. “This seems like important information that should have been shared with me earlier.” 

“What good would it have done?” asks Arthur. “You couldn’t keep anything down, you weren’t going to keep vodka down.” 

“The vodka could have tried to fight for me! From now on, to combat your bacteria army, I shall carry vodka with me at all times. My vodka shall defeat your bacteria.” 

“Probably your vodka will be sleeping off the night before and never show up at the battlefield,” remarks Arthur. 

“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” says Julia, “I’m just saying that alcohol is pretty much the only safe thing to have in your diet.” 

“Medical breakthrough,” Eames tells her. “You should have been a doctor.” 

“Fucking organic chemistry,” sighs Julia, and shakes her head. 

Arthur sighs and sprawls on the couch next to the makeup chair. 

Julia casts a look at him. “You’re in a suit again.” 

“That sweater thing was a one-off.”

“Because of how hard you partied the night before.” 

“Because of Eames being _sick_.”

“Well, I like the polka-dotted shirt,” says Julia. “Good choice. It’s playful.” 

“Thanks,” says Arthur. 

“I bought him the polka-dotted shirt,” Eames says proudly. “I told him he needs more polka dots in his life.” 

“Which is not something you hear a whole lot, but is a surprisingly common thing to hear in our house,” remarks Arthur. 

Julia laughs. “You two are cute. Eames for Arthur, Arthur for Eames.” 

“We’ll reach our saturation point,” Eames says, “and then everyone will turn on us.” 

“That’s what Alec says,” Julia agrees. 

“Of _course_ Alec says that,” says Arthur. 

“Alec leaves off the part where it doesn’t bloody matter what anybody on the Internet thinks because we were here before the Internet love and we’ll still be here after it’s gone,” says Eames firmly. “Where is Alec, speaking of?” 

Julia shrugs. “Haven’t seen him yet. You guys beat him in.” 

Arthur sprawls on the couch and waits for Julia to be done with Eames and only spies on Alec’s Twitter a little bit. It’s been mostly quiet since the filming of the challenge announcement. A few generic things about “Hart in Your Home” repeats airing and some obviously canned and pre-written tweets. 

The network tried to do that sort of thing with Arthur’s Twitter when “Love It or List It” first started but Arthur was so embarrassed by the vapidity of the tweets that he put an end to it. Arthur’s Twitter had, in fact, been mostly unused until Eames had finally goaded him into responding to his constant teasing. That had been before they’d started dating, even, back when Arthur was pining and annoyed that Eames didn’t seem to register the depth of his pining and instead just keep tweeting at him _Daaaaaaaaaaarliiiiiiiiiiiing_ and _Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_ and _Oops I ran out of characters on that one, I’ll finish it here: iiiiiiiiiing_. Arthur had finally tweeted back, _For the love of God, stop doing that_. Eames had responded with, _Darling!_ and then _Everyone, look who’s joined us!_ and Arthur hadn’t been able to escape ever since. He actually liked Twitter more than Tumblr, because Twitter was good for grouchy micro-complaints, which was pretty much Arthur’s specialty. Eames’s Twitter was, predictably, all good-natured enthusiasm about a clever staircase idea he’d had and ice blue being his personal color of the year. Arthur’s Twitter was things like _Why are there fifteen people in line in front of me for coffee? It’s like the world is trying to kill me._

Julia says, “You know, Arthur, I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” says Arthur, and scrolls through Eames’s tweets. He’s seen them all already, but it gives him something to do. 

“We should change up your hair.”

“Nope,” says Arthur, without looking up. 

“But you’ve got such beautiful hair and—”

“You won’t change his mind,” Eames tells her. “He simply will not allow the full glory of his hair to be enjoyed by any of us. I think he thinks it’d be like Medusa. We’d all look at his full-strength beauty and die.” 

“That’s not actually the story of Medusa,” says Arthur. “You know that, right?” 

“I’m using poetic license,” Eames tells him. “Like when Willy Wonka quotes Oscar Wilde.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes and says to Julia, “I look twelve years old if you do anything different to my hair.” 

“He is right about that,” Eames agrees. “He doesn’t age at the same rate as us mere mortals. It’s his leprechaun blood.” 

“I don’t have leprechaun blood.” 

“I’m not sure you don’t _not_ have leprechaun blood,” says Eames. 

“Have you tried wearing more green?” Julia asks him. 

“Just a little four-leaf clover in your lapel, darling.” 

“No,” says Arthur. 

“Ask Twitter,” suggests Eames. 

“I’m not asking Twitter for fashion advice.” 

“No, ask them if you’re part-leprechaun.” 

“Where are you even getting this idea about leprechaun blood from?” asks Arthur, and then wonders why he engages with Eames’s craziness. 

Eames holds up his index finger. “One, you’re impossibly young-looking and don’t have any wrinkles or gray hairs and it’s freakish.” Eames adds his middle finger. “Two, you’re not terribly tall.” 

“We’re the same height,” Arthur points out. 

“Yes, but I don’t accidentally look like a twelve-year-old if I do my hair the wrong way.” 

Arthur sighs. “So this is your evidence?” 

“This is my evidence. What is your rebuttal?” 

“I’m not Irish.” 

“That’s what you’d say if you were Irish and a leprechaun.” 

“He has a point,” Julia agrees. 

“He doesn’t have a point,” Arthur says. “This is how he thinks he wins every argument: I say the truth, and he says, ‘That’s what you’d say if that wasn’t the truth,’ and then he does this eyebrow waggle thing—”

“And it’s cute so you drop it,” says Eames. 

“Yes,” Arthur allows, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not onto you.” 

“Of course not, darling,” says Eames equably. 

“You’re all set, Eames,” says Julia. 

“On a scale of one to ten, how attractive do I look?” Eames asks her. 

“Eleven,” says Julia. 

“You, Julia, are my second-favorite,” Eames informs her, and kisses her cheek. 

Arthur stands and settles himself in the makeup chair and Eames goes off in search of “very weak tea” because Eames is still leery of anything with too much taste and that is, of course, when Alec shows up. 

He says stiffly and carefully, “Hello, Arthur.” 

Arthur tries not to let his surprise show. “Hello, Alec.” 

“Have you just gotten started? How much longer, Julia?” 

“A little while,” Julia says. 

“I’ll come back, then,” Alec says. 

And leaves. 

“Huh,” says Arthur, unable to help himself. 

“You should have straight-up threatened him a long time ago,” Julia tells him.


	34. Chapter 34

“We’re mixing it up,” Mal says to them. “Blind judging this time around.” 

Arthur thinks this is a good idea. He’s been worried people will think he’s playing favorites with Ariadne and this will eliminate that. 

Arthur nods and Alec nods and Eames says, “Fine.”

“My,” says Mal, pleased, “everyone is so cooperative this week. Am I dreaming?” 

Arthur didn’t bother to research for this challenge, because he thinks he understands what a bedroom should look like. 

So of course the very first bedroom they see doesn’t have a bed. 

“Where are you supposed to sleep?” Arthur asks blankly. 

“I suspect you’re supposed to sleep on the floor,” Eames remarks, because the floor is composed of a spongy material that keeps shifting under their feet such that they have to walk with arms straight out to try to maintain balance. 

“This seems…not very workable,” says Arthur. 

“It’s an entire room that’s a bed. A literal bed-room,” says Alec. “Sounds like the type of clever wordplay your girl Ariadne likes.” 

Arthur has his doubts about that. He doesn’t think Ariadne would ever design something this absurd. “Let’s just go on to the next bedroom.” 

“Can you at least say one positive thing?” Mal asks. “For editing purposes.” 

“The wall color is nice,” Eames says. 

“Okay, good, let’s go,” says Arthur, who actually feels vaguely motion-sick the longer he stands on the shifting floor. 

The next bedroom is better in that it at least has a bed. But that’s really all the good that can be said about it. 

“I pronounce this room’s theme to be ‘circus bordello,’” says Eames. 

“Oh, look,” says Alec, “there’s a mirror over the bed. That’s your type of thing, isn’t it, Arthur?”

“No,” says Arthur evenly. “Not really.” 

“No mirrors over the beds in your sex club?” 

“It’s a classy establishment,” deadpans Arthur. “Mirrors over the bed are so _declasse_.” 

“We use holograms,” says Eames, bouncing on the bed experimentally. “The thing about a mirror over the bed is you had better be bloody fond of the way you look, no?” 

“Perfect for you, then, Eames,” says Alec mildly. “I remember you being very fond of the way you look.” And with that he leaves the room. 

Eames lifts his eyebrows at Arthur. 

Arthur says, “I think he’s switching his tactics to snide passive-aggression.” 

“It would seem so,” agrees Eames, and they head on to the next bedroom. 

There are lots of bedrooms that are perfectly unobjectionable but also not terribly exciting. There are the requisite very clean and crisp ones, because by now Arthur is aware that there are a few contestants who are in love with that sort of thing and Alec and Eames are certainly receptive to it. It doesn’t do much for Arthur, because it doesn’t make him want to curl up and relax, and he thinks a bedroom should feel like that. 

“It should be an escape from the rest of the world,” Arthur says, trying not to wrinkle his nose too much at the sharp edges of the bright, white room they’re standing in now. “I mean, waking up to all this would…make you feel immediately anxious, wouldn’t it? And you’d have to be so careful not to get anything dirty.” 

“And that would be a problem,” remarks Alec, “considering how much you like food in bed, Eames. Or, at least, you used to.” And with that he leaves the room. 

“So,” says Eames, “he’s apparently going to deliver a zinger and then leave while he’s ahead?” 

“I don’t think he wants to give me a chance to get the last word in,” admits Arthur. “I may have delivered a zinger and then left during the challenge announcement filming.” 

“A zinger? What zinger?” 

“Um,” says Arthur. “Arthur for Eames.”

“The Twitter hashtag?” 

“It wasn’t a Twitter hashtag at the time.” 

“Wait, that’s what you said? You said ‘Arthur for Eames’?”

“It was a…declaration of intent.” 

“I approve of this intent. And whatever this mysterious conversation was that required a zinger declaration of intent that you are for me, is it leading Alec to be much more open of the fact of our past relationship?” 

“I think he may have reason to believe that I’ve let some of the details of your personal history out,” says Arthur haltingly. 

“Have you?” 

“No. But he doesn’t know that. And I could see why he might think I’d come clean, because I may have given an impression that I’m committed to truth.” 

“I missed quite a day at work that day, hmm?” 

“He’s making a bigger thing out of it than it needs to be.”

“Which is rather what Alec does: makes big things out of little things and little things out of big things. Well.” Eames stands. “Onward. He can continue to deliver his little zingers, and we can continue to ignore him.” 

The next bedroom is more luxurious but in a rococo way that feels crowded to Arthur. 

“I like the wallpaper,” says Eames, and it is the best thing about the room, a semi-metallic print of birds flitting through an enchanted forest. 

“Yes,” says Arthur, “but I don’t know about it for a bedroom. I mean…” Arthur trails off, because he doesn’t exactly want to say, _how would you fuck in such a fussy space?_

Alec says it. “I think Arthur’s trouble is that he would have a difficult time getting in the mood in this bedroom. Not sex-dungeon-y enough for him. Anti-sex-dungeon, in fact. But, Arthur,” says Alec, turning a smile on him, “the sexiness of a bedroom is all about who you’re sharing it with. Right, Eames?” 

“Exit,” murmurs Eames, as Alec exits. “Pursued by a bear.” He lifts his eyebrows at Arthur and smiles and says, “Shall we?”

Arthur knows exactly which room is Ariadne’s as soon as he steps into it. It’s a woodland glen. There is a mural of a tree along one wall, accented with three-dimensional bronze leaves that drip off of it every so often. And on the wall above the bed, where every other designer (who had a bed) has put a headboard of some sort, there is an array of stained glass. It’s subtle but it definitely paints the bronze tree in sunshine tones, and the effect of it is like sunlight filtered through forest leaves. Arthur sits on the bed and spends a second just enjoying the effect of it. It’s utterly relaxing. He feels as if he could sit there for hours. 

“You can always tell when Arthur falls in love with something,” Eames says straight to the camera, “because his dimples come out. Yusuf, get a close-up of the dimples.” 

“Stop it,” says Arthur self-consciously, ducking his head a bit, sure that his ears are pink. 

“Luckily,” continues Eames, “magnificently, I get to see that look all the time.” 

Alec doesn’t have a single snide remark to make about that. But he still leaves the room.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the only chapter for the night, but at least it's a long-ish one!
> 
> Thank you to coffeeandtv whose comment about baking cake batter for Arthur made me come up with their exchange about cake batter in this chapter, and someone suggested that something like this might happen during this Viewing Day and I cannot for the life of me find that comment, but thank you to that someone anyway!

Arthur makes Eames promise that there will be no Viewing Day present this time. 

“Aw,” pouts Eames, “I was going to plant you a tree in honor of the forest bedroom!”

“Outside?” asks Arthur, because you never know in their house; Arthur would only have been mildly surprised to find a tree in the middle of their bedroom one day. 

“Of course outside,” says Eames. “I don’t have anywhere to plant a tree in here.” Eames frowns. “And that was a huge oversight. I should have made us some kind of solarium with huge planting beds and we could have had an indoor forest. Do you think I could still do it? We’ve got a lot of space at the other end of the house that we generally don’t use, and the ceilings are fairly high…” And Eames goes dashing off to the other side of the house to figure out how he can give them an indoor forest. 

This, Arthur thinks, is just a day in their life. He doesn’t even blink at this stuff anymore. 

Arthur does make Eames a cake for Viewing Day. He said no gifts but he doesn’t think baking a cake really counts as a gift. 

When Eames comes home from his onsite consultation with a client, Arthur is just taking the cake out of the oven. 

“What’s this?” Eames asks, already practically drooling. Eames has a demanding sweet tooth. 

“I made you cake batter,” says Arthur. 

“And then you ruined it by baking it,” says Eames, slinging an arm around Arthur’s waist and pulling him up against him. 

“I’m saving you from bacteria,” Arthur explains. 

“I know. You’re lovely,” says Eames, and kisses him, and then takes a picture of the cake and tweets it with _Happy #nextbigthing Day! Arthur fully baked a cake all the way through! No evil bacteria today! #arthur4everything #arthur4eames_

Arthur makes Eames let the cake cool so Arthur can frost it before they slice into it, and also he suggests the possibility that they have a real, healthy dinner like actual adults. 

“But why start that now?” asks Eames, bewildered, and Arthur has to admit that they really are terrible with eating things that are not take-out. 

“One of us should take a cooking class,” Arthur remarks. 

“I volunteer you,” says Eames blithely. 

They bring their cake into the living room with them and watch the end of the show before _Next Big Thing_ , which is a renovation show and he and Eames both complain about it, Eames about design choices and Arthur about how they killed their resale value. 

Arthur checks his watch and ventures, during the last commercial break, “So. Tonight’s episode.” 

Eames lifts an eyebrow at him. 

“I gave this ridiculously long, rambling interview thing to Yusuf and I’m not sure how much Mal’s going to use so I’m just trying to prepare you for how idiotic I’m going to sound.” 

“Darling, I live with how idiotic you sound, I’m very used to it.” 

“Thank you,” says Arthur, “you’re very supportive.” 

Eames tips his head quizzically. “You’re really nervous about this. Why? Is this about Twitter? Darling, don’t stress yourself out about Twitter.” 

Arthur shakes his head. “It isn’t about Twitter, it’s about you and me. I mean, Alec’s right—”

“Take that back right now.” 

“He is, though, Eames, because we’re not playing roles. Well, I’m not.” 

“You think I’m playing a role with you?” 

“No. I’m just saying. It’s me, in the interview. It’s just…me. And so, you know, just…” Arthur shrugs. 

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Eames sounds thoroughly bewildered, and Arthur doesn’t blame him because he’s doing a terrible job of attempting to explain that he thinks he made a fool of himself because Alec and his mind games are more effective than Arthur wants them to be. “You’re extraordinarily charming and sweet, you know. _You_ are, not any role you’re playing. So I’m sure it’s fine.” 

Arthur tips forward to press his face against Eames’s chest because he’s not sure he even wants to _watch_ how embarrassing he’s going to be. “Do you know what is a thing that should exist?” 

“What?” asks Eames. 

“You should be able to militarize your mind.” 

“Militarize your mind? Like against bacteria armies?” 

“No, against people like Alec who mess all around in it. Like, wouldn’t it be nice if, every time someone tried to make you think something stupid that you know isn’t true, some piece of you would just show up with an Uzi and blow their heads off? Figuratively speaking.” 

“That’s what I’m for,” says Eames. “Whenever someone tries to make you think something stupid that you know isn’t true, come and find me.” 

“You don’t know how to handle an Uzi.” 

“No, but I give pretty amazing head,” says Eames. “Practically the same thing.” 

“International diplomacy would be so different if you were in charge,” muses Arthur. 

“Well, you _were_ talking about blowing people,” Eames tells him. 

_Last time on Next Big Thing!_ proclaims the cheerful narrator, and Arthur peeks out from Eames’s chest. “Do not call me ‘Artie.’ Do not touch my shoulder. And we’re not doing a (beep) handshake, either,” says Arthur onscreen, followed by a cut to him saying to Eames, “I don’t think you’re funny,” and Eames replying, grinning at him, “I think you’re hilarious,” a shot so intimate they might as well have been making out. There are a couple of Eames’s harsher comments—real-life Eames winces under Arthur—and an excerpt from Eames’s speech about flight, with his hard look at Alec and Alec’s less-than-pleased-looking reaction shot. And then, almost as an afterthought, there are some shots of the micro-apartments, including one of Arthur climbing up into the sleeping loft, naturally. 

And then the episode goes directly into Alec, black eye vivid and intense, in his interview. 

“Ouch,” says Eames at the black eye. 

“I forgot you didn’t really see it. They played that up,” Arthur says. “Enhanced it with makeup.” 

“It’s actually a very intense profession,” says Alec onscreen, sounding very grave. “Disagreements can get very heated. They can even get physical.” Light laugh, gesture to his black eye. The camera actually zooms in a little to emphasize it. “I mean, Arthur didn’t really mean this, but you would be surprised the lengths people will go to to defend an aesthetic. It can be hard to hear criticism. And, of course, Arthur’s not really a designer so he has an even harder time accepting that sometimes he has…difficulty seeing the ‘hart.’”

And the episode shifts to Arthur’s interview. He looks prim and proper in his shirt and tie and sweater and it contrasts with the hard, weary look on his face and the set to his jaw when he says, “Okay, yes, I punched Alec.” 

Arthur turns his face back into Eames’s chest, because he doesn’t actually want to watch this awkwardness. So instead he just listens. 

“But I didn’t punch him over ‘aesthetic differences.’ That is so…You shouldn’t solve your disagreements with violence, and of course I shouldn’t have punched him, but I didn’t punch him over, like, _paint colors_ or something.” 

There is a long pause. Arthur hears his on-screen self sigh before continuing. “Look. Here’s the thing, right? You get used to the things people can say about you. You kind of know what they’re going to be. There are a lot of things Alec could say about me. Starting with how I’m ‘not really a designer.’ And that’s fine. I mean, not fine, you wouldn’t want people to say unpleasant things about you, but you can handle it. You kind of…grow up learning how to handle that. I get that. I am…a difficult and unpleasant person, a lot of people will tell you that. But the thing about Eames is that he…isn’t. He’s…Eames is the most genuine, sincere person I know. He gives off this impression, right, this kind of flippant, frivolous sort of…And I have been known to fall for that myself, to sell him short, to think that he’s less than…extraordinary. Because he is. Eames is so incredibly…He’s so ridiculously giving and generous and kind and he doesn’t deserve a single bad word said about him. Not a single one. And I wasn’t prepared to…I mean, I couldn’t possibly be prepared for Alec to say something about Eames. He can say anything he wants about me, because he’d have a point, but to say anything about Eames, to imply that he isn’t…wonderful…I don’t…So that’s what Alec did. It wasn’t an aesthetic difference. He went after the best person I know.” 

Onscreen Arthur sighs again. “I don’t know what else to say. If you’re sitting there wondering how it is that Eames ended up with me, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that. I can’t tell you. But I’m not sure I’m ever really going to apologize for fighting to make sure that I defend the most incredible gift the universe has ever given me.” 

There’s a moment of silence on the television, and Arthur keeps his face pressed against Eames and waits for him to say something. 

He says, “ _Darling_ —” and then cuts himself off, because Arthur can hear Alec onscreen saying, “You just…opened the envelope.” 

“Yeah,” onscreen Arthur responds. “That is something that can be done really very quickly and easily. Sorry Eames isn’t here, he’s sick, he sends a very inappropriate piece of advice I’m not going to repeat, and here is your challenge: ‘Design a bedroom.’ Okay, good luck.”

“Some of you may be wondering about my black eye,” says Alec onscreen. 

“Fine,” says onscreen Arthur. “I punched him.” 

Arthur listens to Alec onscreen perform his little melodramatic speech. “Shocking, shocking. I know. But this is a lesson to all of you. There is so much _hart_ in design. And I don’t just mean me. Feelings get involved, emotions can run high, and—”

“And obnoxious, rude, idiotic people can insult your boyfriend in your presence for no reason other than a complete and utter inability to stay professional and out of other people’s personal lives,” cuts in onscreen Arthur. “You want to start (beep) ridiculous rumors about me and sex dungeons and orgies, fine, go right ahead. Don’t go near Eames. Not even a _step_ in his direction.” 

“Arthur for violent threats, eh?” says onscreen Alec. 

“Arthur for Eames,” onscreen Arthur spits out, and Arthur can hear his own footsteps on the television as he walks out. 

And then the network shifts to a rather jarring commercial.

“Fuck,” says Eames. 

Arthur winces. “Okay, I know that it’s—”

“Shut up,” says Eames and shuts off the television. 

Arthur lifts his head. “It’s just—”

Eames kisses him so hard it tumbles both of them off the couch, jostles them into the coffee table, and Eames is pawing at his clothing and panting, “Jesus fucking Christ, that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Arthur is startled, looking up at him and not helping at all as Eames peels off his shirt. “Really?” 

“Really?” Eames repeats. “ _Really_? _Darling_.” Eames ducks down to plant kisses over Arthur’s chest, punctuating each one with “I love you—I love you—I love you—I love you.” 

“Eames, I…” says Arthur, but he’s not sure what he meant to say, and anyway, Eames’s hands have dispensed with his pants at this point so he’s mildly distracted. 

Eames draws his nose up Arthur’s breastbone, heaving for breath underneath him, and strokes him to full hardness, and shifts himself further up so he can press his lips against Arthur’s, and murmurs, “Say you love me. Just say you love me.” 

“I love you,” gasps Arthur. 

Eames shifts upward slightly, just enough so Arthur can pull his face into focus instead of being dizzy with his closeness. “You’re _amazing_ ,” Eames says. 

“I—”

“No.” Eames kisses him swiftly, rests his forehead against Arthur’s, and Arthur closes his eyes. “Just say you love me. That’s it.” 

“I love you,” manages Arthur. 

Eames kisses him again. “Arthur for Eames,” he says thickly, and tugs Arthur’s lower lip between his teeth. “Eames for Arthur.” 

And then he moves down Arthur’s body, nipping and licking and nibbling, his hands shoving Arthur’s pants and briefs out of his way, and Arthur arches to give him room to work, trying to shove at the coffee table that’s hemming them in so close to the couch, but it doesn’t matter because Eames doesn’t seem to feel hampered at all by the closeness of the quarters. Eames teases, like they have all the time in the world, biting at Arthur’s hipbone, lapping at his belly, ignoring the way Arthur squirms and swears at him. 

“You’ve forgotten the rule,” Eames says, from the inside of Arthur’s thigh, where he really isn’t doing anything productive as far as Arthur is concerned. 

“What fucking rule?” demands Arthur. 

Eames flashes him a smile, and the thing about this smile is that it is no leer, it is not the least bit filthy, except for the fact that it originates from directly over Arthur’s erection. This is the smile Eames gives him when he thinks Arthur is adorable. This is Eames’s Christmas-morning-aren’t-I-the-luckiest-bastard-in-the-universe smile. 

Arthur’s breath catches in his throat. Because _that smile_ , straight at him, gets him every single fucking time. 

Eames notices. He pauses, and his smile fades, and his eyes get very serious, and he says, very softly, “Just say you love me.” 

“I love you,” breathes Arthur, and Eames’s eyes hold his as he swallows him down, and Arthur kind of wants to keep that gaze through the blowjob, he kind of wants to keep that gaze through the rest of his _life_ , but he can’t help it that Eames is basically as good at this as he thinks that he is and Arthur ends up losing track of his limbs and his thoughts and definitely his vision. 

“Eames for Arthur,” Eames says afterward, dragging his way up Arthur’s boneless body. “Best fucking hashtag in the universe.” 

“You’re right,” Arthur says, sloppily brushing a hand through Eames’s hair. “That is a little like having your head blown off by an Uzi.” 

Eames laughs. Eames laughs until his head is collapsed onto Arthur’s shoulder and he’s snorting with the laughter. 

Arthur smiles and combs at his hair and brushes kisses over him and says, “I love you.” 

Eames says, “Did you think I wouldn’t love that speech, you utter mad lunatic?” 

“I know,” says Arthur, because he does feel stupid for his nervousness now. “Thank you.” 

“Darling, I’ll blow you anytime you like, I’m easy like that.” 

“Not what I’m thanking you for.” 

Eames shifts his weight against the coffee table to give Arthur a little breathing room and kisses behind Arthur’s jaw and says, “Right back at you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow I am going to see Winterreise so I don't know if there'll be a chapter, but if you're looking for something to do while you wait you should go read the fic that is the reason I'm going to see Winterreise: http://archiveofourown.org/works/153587


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to pureimaginatrix for the envelope hashtag suggestion!

Eames comes into their bedroom with fresh pieces of cake and insists that they watch Arthur’s speech off the DVR in their bedroom until he’s tired of it. Which turns out to be so much endless rewinding and replaying that even Arthur grows immune to being embarrassed by it and curls up on Eames’s chest and just lets him keep watching it while he checks the situation on Twitter. 

Twitter starts off in a state of confusion. _What happened to Alec’s eye? #nextbigthing #arthur4everything_ and then _*Arthur* did that to him? That’s got to be a joke, right? #arthur4everything?_ and _I knew Arthur would punch his smug face sooner or later. #arthur4everything #damnstraight_ and _It should be wrong that I find it hot that Arthur punched him, right? VIOLENCE IS WRONG. #arthur4makingeverythingsexy_ and _…This stupid reality show is the best soap opera I have ever watched. Seriously. I need this show to never end. #arthur4everything #arthur4eva_ and _Fuck you, Alec Hart, Arthur’s not really a designer? At least he’s not wearing a stupid fedora #arthur4everything_

And then the show moves into his interview, and at first the tweets are all about his clothing. _Is he wearing a *sweater*? #arthur4everything_ and _I thought I was obsessed with Arthur’s suits and then he showed up in a sweater. #reevaluatingmyfantasy #bothcanihaveboth #arthur4everything_ and _What the hell, does he make everything look like walking, talking sex? #arthur4everything #killmenow_ and _FORGET ABOUT PUNCHING ALEC, THE REAL DANGER OF ARTHUR IS HOW HE’S GOING TO KILL ALL OF US WITH SEXY #arthur4everything_ and _wriugw;gu;aiublg;gbRBYLBRNANnathiunl, #arthurinasweater #arthur4everything_. 

And then the tweets turn into mostly _Oh. My. God. #arthur4everything_

Arthur scrolls through varieties of _OMG_ s and _OMFG_ s and hopes that these are positive exclamations. Finally the tweets start to coalesce into whole sentences again. 

_Where do they sell Arthurs? Can I buy myself one? Ugh, he kills me #arthur4everything_

_#arthur4bestspeechontvthisyear #arthur4everything_

_#arthur4bestspeechEVER #arthur4everything_

_I CANNOT WITH THE WAY THESE TWO LOVE EACH OTHER. I CANNOT EVEN. #arthur4everything #arthurloveseames_

_Arthur, bb, you are not difficult and unpleasant. DON’T LISTEN TO THE MEAN PEOPLE. #arthur4everything_

_Arthur just made it impossible for me to ever find a boyfriend because none of them will ever make a speech like that. #arthur4everything arthur4unreasonabledatingexpectations_

_Aww, Arthur, don’t look so sad :( Eames loves you back, go find him so we can see the dimples again :) #arthur4everything_

_I can’t even complain how he doesn’t belong to me because LOOK HOW HAPPY THE MAN HE BELONGS TO MAKES HIM OMG #arthur4everything_

_@Eamesnotthechair If you don’t marry Arthur, I will. #arthur4everything_

Arthur takes a deep breath and steadies himself by glancing up at the television. “He’s so ridiculously giving and generous and kind and he doesn’t deserve a single bad word said about him,” says his onscreen self. 

Not terribly steadying. 

Arthur looks back at the tweets, which wander into speculation. All variations of _What do you think Alec said about Eames???? #arthur4everything_

Arthur scrolls past them, registering the point where he opens the envelope, because the tweets turn into things like _Did he just open the envelope? Ha! Look at Alec’s face! #arthur4everything_ and _#arthur4everything #arthur4justopeningthedamnenvelopelikeafuckingboss_

And then everything devolves into _#ARTHUR4EVERYTHING #ARTHUR4EAMES_

Arthur, curious, clicks on the #arthur4eames tag, and it’s characterized by a large number of tweeted photos of him and Eames on “Love It or List It,” either grinning at each other or else Arthur looking dubious as Eames cajoles him. Arthur’s seen most of them before, because Arthur’s always been a little bit of an Internet stalker of his own relationship, but it’s nice to see them again, like coming across familiar faces. 

And there are a couple of tweets with fanfiction recommendations and Arthur backs out of the tag quickly because he doesn’t want to give Eames any room to maneuver down that path. Eames would start writing his own. Eames would make Arthur fucking edit it. Arthur would sit and edit narratives about himself having sex with his boyfriend. It would be madness. 

“What’s Twitter saying?” Eames asks, startling him. 

“Have you watched that enough?” Arthur counters. “Can we move on and watch the rest of the episode now?” 

Eames has his own phone out. “Look how many marriage proposals you’ve got, darling. Well, in case I don’t want you.” 

“Yeah, I’m contemplating their dowry situations now.” 

Eames chuckles and says, “I’ve read that fic about us, too.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Arthur, “I was just thinking how you need to stop that, it’s weird.” 

“You were thinking about sexy stories about us? Pray tell what those might be.” Eames leers at him. 

“A super sexy story where we watched a whole episode of our television show together and then we have pretty enthusiastic sex.” 

“That’s never going to be a popular story, darling,” Eames informs him authoritatively. “You need to describe the sex more explicitly than that.” 

“Explicit description of sex is all you’re going to be getting if you don’t stop talking about fanfiction about us,” Arthur warns him. 

“You’re so cute when you’re saying things you don’t mean,” Eames grins at him. “Here’s a compromise for you.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at him. 

“I will stop talking about fanfiction and actually let us watch the rest of the episode.” 

“Good compromise,” says Arthur. 

“That wasn’t actually a compromise, I just gave you everything you wanted,” Eames points out. 

“I’ll pretend to be a hot shepherd for you later,” says Arthur drily, commandeering the remote control from Eames. 

“Be still my heart,” says Eames. 

The show is in the designing portion, and there is the usual drama between the contestants, which Arthur isn’t interested in at all. He knows that Eames likes hearing the contestants’ design processes, though, so he watches patiently. Halfway through the designing, Mal informs all of them that it will be blind judging. 

“Makes sense,” says one of the contestants bitterly, “because otherwise Arthur just votes for Ariadne all the time. They’re probably sleeping together.” 

“Oh, Christ,” says Arthur, rolling his eyes. 

Eames is tapping away on his phone. 

“What are you doing?” Arthur asks, shifting so he can see. 

“Tweeting,” says Eames, and Arthur reads his tweet. _We’re watching on a delay, but just fyi, there is only one incredibly sexy designer Arthur is sleeping with. #arthur4everything_

Arthur snorts and pulls out his phone and retweets Eames’s tweet and adds _LRT To clarify, that designer is @Eamesnotthechair_

On the show, one of the contestants is complaining that she won’t be able to defend her design in person. This causes a lot of debate among the contestants as to how much design ought to speak for itself. 

“Eames said last challenge that it’s all about selling the story,” one of the contestants points out. “How are we going to do that if we’re not there?” 

“Hmm,” muses Eames, and tweets _Design is a delicate balance between you nudging it along and letting the design speak for itself. You’ve got to be ready to do both._

“Look at you,” Arthur comments. “You’re like the wise old tree in the forest.” 

“Except not old,” says Eames, “and also capable of tweeting, which trees aren’t.” 

Onscreen the judging starts. 

Arthur tracks it through the tweets, scrolling part the ones that are having rapturous fits over his polka-dotted shirt (although it _is_ a nice shirt, so he’s happy about that). Mal left in all of Alec’s snide asides, keeping them punctuated with the most hilarious impassive look on Eames’s face. 

Twitter loves Eames’s face, too. “Look,” Arthur says, holding his phone up, “you’re a reaction gif. That’s usually me.” 

“Oh, delightful,” Eames says. “Of course they choose to make me a reaction gif when I look the most like how you usually look.” 

“Ha,” Arthur says, and reads a tweet out loud, “Eames’s unimpressed look is almost as good as Arthur’s. Let’s have a face-off.” He holds the phone up again. “They’re doing a poll. Let’s vote.” 

Eames regards the two photos, reads, “Retweet for Arthur, like for Eames.” 

“Yours is the best because yours looks like you’re dealing with peasants and thinking brilliant thoughts. I always just look like I’ve bitten into a lemon.” 

“I’ll vote for you and you should vote for me.” 

“That makes us sickening,” Arthur says. 

“Eames for Arthur, Arthur for Eames,” says Eames. 

So Arthur likes the tweet, and Eames retweets it with #eames4arthur added. 

Meanwhile, when Arthur gets back to Twitter proper, there is massive discussion about the fact that Eames and Alec clearly were involved with each other. _When did this happen???? #alecandeames_ and _Who has the scoop on this??? Somebody spill!!!! #alecandeames_ and _Eames, I hope Arthur has given you this look a lot for this. Because ALEC? REALLY?_ That tweet has a photo of Arthur scowling. 

Eames, reading over Arthur’s shoulder, remarks, “Yes. Accurate.” 

Onscreen Eames says, “You can always tell when Arthur falls in love with something, because his dimples come out. Yusuf, get a close-up of the dimples.” 

The camera actually does swoop in closer on Arthur, and his dimples are in evidence, as are his pink ears. “Stop it,” says Arthur onscreen. 

“Luckily,” says Eames onscreen, “magnificently, I get to see that look all the time.” 

_Awwwww. #arthur4eames #eames4arthur_ and _THESE TWO #arthur4eames #eames4arthur_ , say Twitter. (And _Still trying to figure out how Eames slept with Alec #just #what_.)

In the end, Ariadne’s woodland glen bedroom wins. 

“And that proves that I’m not the biased one,” Arthur says smugly, “you and Alec are, because Ariadne wins in a blind judging.” 

“You make a good point there,” muses Eames. “Maybe I’m trying to counter what I think people are going to perceive as your bias, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it.” 

Arthur shrugs. “I’m just pleased she won. She had clearly the best room.” 

The designer who made the room that was literally a bed loses. 

Arthur shuts the television off and turns to Eames and says, “We should think about if we need to issue some kind of statement about your past relationship with Alec.” 

“It’s in the past. It’s irrelevant.” 

“I don’t really want to live through a bunch of speculation about it, though, so if we could just, like, say that, maybe it would help a little bit with the amount of digging that’s going to happen?” Arthur suggests. 

“Fair enough.” Eames’s hand skims up Arthur’s side, and he watches its progress closely, then says slowly, “I’m going to say something to you, and you’re going to think that it’s linked to everything that’s going on with the show, but it’s not. It’s something I’ve been meaning to say for a really long time.” 

Arthur regards him in confusion, thinks about statements about past relationships, frets a little bit. “Okay,” he says carefully. 

Eames looks up at him. And Eames says, “Marry me.” 

Arthur stops breathing. 

“Darling.” Eames gives him a wry smile. “You look like I just punched you in the kidney. Try to look a little more enthusiastic about it. Or at least a little less sick.” 

“No,” Arthur manages. “I mean, not no. Not—What?” He knows he sounds like an idiot, so he stops talking, hoping Eames will say something instead. Eames usually does talk enough for the both of them. 

“I want to marry you,” says Eames patiently. 

Arthur keeps staring at him. 

Eames leans forward and kisses his shoulder and then settles back into bed as if nothing very remarkable has happened. 

“You,” says Arthur, and then has nothing else to say. 

“Shh. You need processing time, darling. Don’t say anything else just yet.” Eames gives him a quick, fond kiss and then actually turns the television on. 

“No,” Arthur says. “No. Wait.” He turns the television back off. “If this is about what I said—”

“It isn’t really—”

“About what Twitter said—”

“It has absolutely nothing to do with Twitter.” 

“About what Alec said—”

“And even less than nothing to do with Alec,” Eames says firmly. 

“Would you be saying this to me if all of this hadn’t just happened to us? If we weren’t on ‘Next Big Thing,’ if Alec didn’t freak me out about you not being able to share the spotlight, if Twitter wasn’t telling you to marry me, would you be—”

“This isn’t about Twitter,” Eames says. 

“Okay, fine, what about the rest of it?” 

Eames pauses. “Well. I’d be lying if I said that it had nothing to do with my realizing how much you worry about our future. I’ve been thinking it forever, darling. I should have asked you long ago. I didn’t—I don’t know why—because—I don’t know, I have no explanation. I should have just asked you. I always meant to. But we were happy and going along and I just didn’t have it in the forefront of my brain.”

“And now it’s there because Alec put it there. Because you think I’m not happy. Because you think I need more.” 

“Darling, please don’t make it sound as if I wouldn’t have married you ages ago.”

“If you’d thought of it.” 

“If I’d thought you wanted it.” 

“I want it,” Arthur says, even though he doesn’t really mean to say it, but he can’t help it. “Of course I want it. I wanted to marry you all along. It’s so stupid, I’ve spent so much time wondering why I feel that way, because I know it wouldn’t really change anything, but, I don’t know, something about the symbolism of it, or something, I don’t know, I really want it.” 

“Okay,” Eames says, and puts a soothing hand on the back of Arthur’s neck. “So let’s get married.” 

“I don’t want to do it like this,” Arthur says desperately. 

“What?” 

“I don’t want it to have anything to do with Alec Hart, or this stupid show, or Twitter, or anything that isn’t us. Can you wait? Just a little while? A few more weeks? Until all of this is over and it’s just us again and then ask me again. Can you do that? I don’t want to remember the moment as being this, tonight? Please?” He feels oddly passionate about this and he doesn’t know quite why. He supposes it’s because it’s true that he’s wanted this for so long, dreamed about it, fantasized about it. He’s had an emotionally exhausting week and he doesn’t want to think of the day of his marriage proposal as being linked up with all this nonsense. 

Eames smiles at him, a sweet, lovely smile. Eames says, “I can do that, yes.” 

“I just want it to be more about us. Just entirely about us,” Arthur says, wanting so badly to be able to explain the jumble in his head and his heart. “You’re wonderful and I love you and I just want it to be—”

“You want it to be an incredibly special moment with champagne and roses,” says Eames. “You would. I can’t believe I just blurted it out at you like this. You’d think I’d just met you and had never had the time to realize how hopelessly romantic you are about these things.” 

Arthur knows he’s blushing. The only place to hide is against Eames’s skin, so he does it. “It doesn’t have to be champagne and roses. I’m not trying to be difficult.” 

“Shh,” Eames says, and kisses his head. “Stop it. We’ll make it special. Of course we’ll make it special. Of course we will.” 

Arthur pushes up so he can see Eames, because this is important. “Are you angry?” 

“Not even a little bit,” says Eames. 

Arthur studies him and he looks like he’s telling the truth. 

“Okay,” Eames says, and leans up so he can kiss Arthur’s temple. “You promised me some hot roleplay about a shepherd, didn’t you?” 

And Arthur’s so relieved that Eames doesn’t seem upset, that Eames is willing to just pretend it didn’t happen because of some stupid notion Arthur has of wanting a perfect proposal, that Arthur kisses him hard enough to push him back onto the bed. “Baa,” says Arthur, shifting himself over Eames. 

And Eames laughs and kisses him like he loves him more than anything else in the world and wants to keep him forever. 

Which Arthur supposes is actually true.


	37. Chapter 37

In the morning the Tumblr theories about Alec and Eames are out of control. There are clearly Photoshopped pictures of Eames with Alec _everywhere_ , and, because they’re Photoshopped, a lot of them make it look as if the whole thing happened much more recently than it did. Arthur finds himself studying a timeline of his own relationship with injected photographic “proof” that Eames is cheating on him. People on Tumblr are very upset on his behalf. And very angry at Eames. 

And considering this all got started because Arthur was trying to protect Eames, this is a complete disaster. 

“We’re saying something,” Arthur says to Eames, sliding him his phone at the same time that he slides him a cup of tea. “Everyone thinks you’re a horrible boyfriend.”

“Am I?” 

“Eames.” 

“I don’t care what people think, darling. You’re my relevant audience for good-boyfriend-ness.” 

“ _I_ care what people think. I punch people in their stupid smug faces when they think bad things about you.” 

“You can’t punch the entire Internet.” 

“Right. So we need another solution to this.” 

“Okay,” Eames allows. “You’re right. Should we tweet something about it?” 

“You know how I deny things and you say, ‘Ah, but that’s what you’d say if it were true!’? Like, you know, not being a leprechaun?” 

“Yes,” Eames says. 

“I feel like engaging on this could devolve into that. ‘Eames isn’t cheating on me,’ I say, and then everyone says, ‘Ah, but that’s what you’d say if Eames _was_ cheating on you.’”

“So you want to just stay quiet then?” suggests Eames. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.” 

Arthur sips his coffee and leans against the kitchen counter and says, “Should we talk to Alec about it?” 

Eames lifts an eyebrow at him. “Are you feeling okay? Possibly running a fever?” 

“It’s kind of his business, too,” Arthur points out uncomfortably. “Maybe we can come to some sort of…reasonable agreement about all of this, issue some kind of joint statement, fuck, I sound like a lunatic, it’s Alec, of course we’re not going to come to a reasonable agreement.” 

“I should tweet that I’m passionately in love with Alec,” remarks Eames. “What do you think Alec would do?” 

“Not understand it was sarcasm,” says Arthur. “Show up at this house naked except for the fucking fedora.” 

Eames chuckles. 

“Fuck,” says Arthur, and finishes his coffee and rinses out his mug. “I blame you for all of this fuckery.” 

“It is undeniably mostly my fault.” 

“Entirely your fault,” Arthur corrects him. 

“You’re the one who struts around in those sexy suits all the time. What was I supposed to do with all of my sexual frustration?” 

“You could have had me at any moment if you’d stopped being an idiot about everything,” retorts Arthur. 

“Okay,” says Eames. “Entirely my fault.” 

Arthur gives him a look and puts his mug in the dishwasher. 

“So what do you want to do?” Eames asks. “Maybe we should talk to a publicist?”

“I have never really liked the idea of letting a publicist run my personal life,” says Arthur. 

“This isn’t your personal life. They’re not going to say, you know, anything about how we run our relationship with each other. This is all about the public perception of your personal life.” 

“I don’t want them telling us we need to go out in public together more, or make out for the cameras, or fuck knows.” 

“So we won’t let them tell us things like that,” says Eames reasonably. 

Arthur worries at his lower lip. Eames is probably right here. He can’t come up with another option. But he still wishes none of it was happening at all. 

“Better idea?” asks Eames. 

“The invention of time travel,” Arthur says, “so I could go back and tell myself to turn around and get back into your room and not let you be a fucking idiot.” 

“Okay. So if time travel doesn’t get invented by the end of the day, we’ll call a publicist,” says Eames. 

“Where are we even going to get a publicist?” Arthur asks. “Are they listed in the phonebook?” 

“I think it’s adorable that you think people still have phonebooks.”

“You know what I mean,” says Arthur. 

“I’ll ask Cobb,” Eames says. “Cobb will know all about publicists, considering how much Cobb freaks out about our public images.”


	38. Chapter 38

Alec says, “I think it was a very successful episode.” 

Since Alec is now part of the popular hashtags coming out of the show--#alecandeames—Arthur doesn’t doubt that Alec thinks it was a success. Alec doesn’t care why he’s being talked about, just that he’s being talked about. 

He and Alec, Arthur realizes, have diametrically opposite goals from this scandal. Arthur wants to minimize it, to stop people talking about it, and Alec will want to milk it for all its worth. No one has ever before thought him worthy of the attention of a man like Eames. 

Arthur tries to concentrate on making his coffee as carefully as possible while Alec hovers around him, and wishes Eames would hurry up in makeup so they could film this stupid challenge envelope opening and get home again. Arthur says, “Don’t you need to go make sure you get into optimum lighting space?” 

Alec says, “I just want to make sure that you know I have no hard feelings.” 

Arthur glances at him. “About what?” 

Alec gestures to his eye meaningfully. 

“Oh,” says Arthur awkwardly. “Yes. I guess…thank you?” He doesn’t really know what the fuck he’s supposed to be saying here. 

“I can tell from what you said in the episode that you have great faith in Eames, and I think that’s admirable.” He says it as if he thinks Arthur is the world’s most naïve person. 

Arthur takes a deep breath and tells himself not to punch Alec again. “Yeah,” says Arthur. “That’s me. Very admirable.” 

“I’m sure he’s given you all the proper assurances,” continues Alec. 

_Proper assurances?_ thinks Arthur, and says, “And then we put some money in escrow as a gesture of mutual trust.” 

Alec does his overenthusiastic laugh again. It’s been a while since Arthur’s heard it. 

“Hello,” Eames says, coming up to them, and surprises Arthur by using his tie to tug him in for a quick kiss. It’s showy and possessive and normally Arthur would frown upon something like that but he recognizes that it’s Eames pushing back at all of the rumors. “Lovely morning, yes?” Eames gives Alec a bright smile. 

“I was just praising Arthur on his very touching speech about you.” 

“Ah, yes,” says Eames. “No one can ever say again that I’m the one in the relationship with the way with words, eh?” Eames winks at Arthur. 

“I think it is fantastic that the two of you are full of such trusting devotion. You don’t see that very often in this day and age.” 

Eames says after a moment, “That’s us. Like a Yeti sighting. Or a fedora.” 

There’s that overenthusiastic laugh again. 

Mal barks out, “Arthur! Eames!” and doesn’t sound the least bit pleased. 

Eames turns on the charm. “Mal,” he says. “My beautiful flower—”

“No,” says Mal. “Explain to me. Dom says you are looking for a publicist.” 

Eames blinks. “He told you that?” 

“Trust,” says Alec mournfully. “See what I mean? Such a rare commodity in this world.” 

_Don’t punch him_ , Arthur tells himself, and then says to Mal, “We need to manage these rumors about Eames and Alec.” 

Mal shakes her head furiously. “No, no, no. Manage them? They are fantastic! Have you ever seen so many people talking about such a boring show?” 

“Cheers, Mal,” says Eames drily. 

Arthur says, “They’re all talking about how my boyfriend’s cheating on me.”

“There’s actually a very interesting debate going on about if it’s technically cheating when you’re running your sex club and engaging in orgies. I mean, you two do seem to have a very open relationship,” Alec notes. 

“For the last time,” Arthur says between gritted teeth, “I do not run a sex club, we do not have orgies, and we do not have an open relationship.” 

“But you said—” began Alec. 

“And they’re having a debate about whether or not my boyfriend is cheating on me, that’s the debate,” Arthur cuts him off. 

“But you know he isn’t,” says Alec innocently. 

“And you could help here,” Arthur snaps at him. 

Alec lifts his eyebrows. “What do you want me to do?” 

“Tell people you’re not sleeping with Eames. You want credit for fucking a hot guy for once, fine, I’ll give you the credit, but can we put it in the proper place in the timeline?” 

Alec frowns. “There is no shortage of hotness in my life, thank you very much.” 

“Really?” shoots back Arthur. “Because currently the only hotness anybody thinks you have in your life is _my boyfriend_.” 

“Okay,” Eames begins. 

“Arthur, my lovely,” says Mal soothingly, “nobody thinks that you aren’t eminently capable of keeping Eames’s interest.” 

“The _entire Internet_ thinks that,” Arthur retorts, “but that’s not the point. The point is that Eames shouldn’t have to have people thinking that he’s a terrible person. And apparently you two are totally willing to throw him under the bus to feed your own overinflated egos.” 

Mal crosses her arms and looks very unimpressed. “I’ve got news for you: Getting a publicist isn’t going to help you have fewer overinflated egos in your life.” 

“It doesn’t matter what we say,” Alec tells him. “The Internet doesn’t care. We can all say there’s nothing going on between Eames and me and no one will believe us.” 

“I’d like to test that hypothesis,” Arthur decides spontaneously. “I want all of us to tweet that you are not currently involved, that it all happened before Eames and I started dating. That’s what I want us to tweet.” 

“And that will make it happy, will you?” snaps Alec. “King Arthur would stop sulking around the place?” 

“I’m tweeting it right now,” Arthur snaps back, and pulls out his phone. 

“Darling,” says Eames. 

“No, this is a good idea,” Arthur tells him, typing furiously. “Yes, Eames had a relationship with Alec but it happened before we were dating. No cheating. Hashtag Eames for Arthur, hashtag Arthur for Eames.” 

Across from him, Alec is also typing furiously. 

Arthur starts another tweet. “Eames is really bad at household chores and insists on eating Marmite in bed but otherwise he’s the best boyfriend in the world, seriously.” 

“Explain to them that ‘eating Marmite in bed’ isn’t a euphemism,” murmurs Eames. 

Arthur puts his phone away with a flourish. “There. Done.” 

“Me, too,” Alec says, and also puts his phone away with an answering flourish. Then he adjusts his fedora on his head and says, “Let’s get the lighting right, Mal.” 

Mal glares at them. “I think you are all conspiring against me.” 

Eames has his phone out, typing away at it. 

“What are you tweeting?” 

“Clarifying that ‘eating Marmite in bed’ isn’t a euphemism,” Eames says. “I thought you didn’t want to just tweet about it. I thought you thought no one would believe us.” 

“I changed my mind,” Arthur says. 

“You lost your temper,” Eames counters. 

“He’s fucking annoying,” Arthur says. “What is all that about how much we _trust_ each other?” 

“We do trust each other.” 

“He makes it sound like a bad thing,” Arthur notes. “And why doesn’t he just drop the sex club thing? He _knows_ I was being sarcastic about the orgies. Him and that fucking fedora,” he mutters and swipes at his hair. 

“Hmm,” Eames says, frowning at his phone. “So. You’re not going to like this.” 

“Oh, Christ, what now?” asks Arthur with dread. 

“Alec definitely tweeted that he is not relevant to our relationship. And I quote: Don’t worry, everyone! Eames and I did date—generous word for that, but whatever—but it predated Eames’s relationship with Arthur. So no cheating anywhere!” 

“It’s fine,” Arthur says. “I mean, it does what I wanted it to do. Hopefully.” 

“Next tweet,” says Eames. “And I quote again: In fact, I would not be surprised if we hear very soon about wedding bells for a certain couple, wink wink.”

Arthur stares at Eames. “Wedding bells,” he repeats flatly. 

“Um,” says Eames. “Yes.” 

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” says Arthur.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to tea-n-brains for the challenge in this episode!

Arthur takes Eames’s phone out of his hand and frowns at it. The tweet is there, real and undeniable. _Wedding bells._

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Arthur says again. 

“Okay,” Eames says, and takes his phone back. “Let’s stay calm.” 

“Stay calm?” Arthur repeats in disbelief. 

“Yes, because Alec did this to irritate you and he’s watching right now and why don’t you smile at me and give me a kiss and look like nothing is wrong?” 

Arthur smiles at Eames. 

“Good God,” Eames says, “never mind, stop smiling.” 

“Eames,” Arthur complains. 

Eames takes his hand and tugs him in so he can kiss where his dimples would be if he were smiling. “He did what we asked him to do, so it’s hard to be too upset.” 

“Watch me,” says Arthur. “I want to know how he knew about the whole wedding discussion.” 

“He didn’t,” Eames says. “Obviously. It’s not like he’s clever enough to bug our bedroom or something.” A beat. “Although I have read the fic where we’re spies.” 

“Oh, my God,” sighs Arthur. And then, “Is Alec in that fic?” 

“No, just you and me. And a bunch of supervillains modeled after some of the more notorious couples from the show. It’s an incredibly interesting commentary on our true roles as the maintainers of peace on the planet.” 

“You’re analyzing these things now,” remarks Arthur. “I thought you were just reading them for the sex. And I can’t even decide which scenario I find weirder. Fuck.” Arthur leans his forehead against Eames’s shoulder. “I just wanted it to be ours.” 

Eames kisses his head. “It’ll still be ours.” 

“The announcement came from _Alec_.” 

“Yeah, but who reads Alec’s Twitter?” 

Arthur lifts his head and glares at Eames. “ _Everyone_. It’s why the think I own a sex club, remember?” 

“Fair point. Look. Here’s what this is all about. He thinks I have commitment issues. Because I had commitment issues to him. He’s assuming my commitment issues are a point of contention in our relationship. But we know they’re not. He’s not trying to usurp our wedding announcement, he said it precisely because he thinks we’d never make a wedding announcement and that’s going to upset you and therefore we’ll break up.” 

“Why? Why would he care? Just to fuck with us?” 

“Maybe. But more likely because we’re linked right now, all three of us. At the moment, as long as we’re in the news, so is he.” 

“Which is why we’re not announcing an engagement now, Eames. We are not making it part of this news cycle we’re caught in. We’re not. We’re not making this incredibly personal and momentous decision be part of Alec’s game.” 

“I agree with you. You don’t need to convince me.” 

“We still need to react in some way to that wedding bells line,” sighs Arthur, because they do. They’re going to be asked about it endlessly, and if they say “no comment” everyone will assume it’s either (a) because they’re planning a secret wedding; or (b) because Eames refuses to marry him. And Arthur likes neither option. 

“Not right now,” Eames decides. “Let’s consider it carefully. Maybe actually consult a publicist this time instead of, you know, getting into a little bit of a dick-measuring contest.” 

“I deserved that,” says Arthur. “I’m sorry that I lost my temper and rushed us into this.” 

“Mmm,” says Eames, and kisses his temple. “Don’t worry, yours is bigger. And where’s my Arthur who never blinks at all the chaos I cause on the show?” 

“That Arthur isn’t jealous,” Arthur admits. 

“I’d say you’ve no reason to be jealous but you already know that, so what I’m saying instead is: Ignore this whole thing. Let’s go open this damn envelope and smile a lot and when we get home I’ll find us some really good fanfiction and we won’t think about this again until much later tonight.” 

“Instead of fanfiction, can we just have sex?” asks Arthur. 

“I could be persuaded,” says Eames. 

“Good,” says Arthur, and kisses him hard. With a lot of tongue. And maybe a little bit of groping. 

“Good show,” Eames murmurs into his mouth, amused. 

Arthur chuckles and says, “Let’s go open this envelope.” 

Alec, carefully positioned, watches them closely as they approach. 

Eames says, “Your turn to open the envelope, isn’t it, Alec?” 

Alec says nonchalantly, “Everything okay?” 

“Brilliant,” says Eames sunnily. “Ta so much for tweeting that clarification, I think it’s really going to help.” 

Alec looks from Eames to Arthur, his gaze appraising. 

Arthur smiles at him. 

Alec frowns a bit and turns as much away as he can without actually moving his head and calls, “Can we get the contestants in here now, please?”

Eames leans forward and murmurs in Arthur’s ear, “Dimples, darling, dimples.” 

“They don’t come out on command,” Arthur murmurs back. 

“Then think of something lovely. Like spreadsheets. Or my naked body.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Let’s open the envelope.” 

The contestants file in, and naturally Alec can’t just open the envelope. First he gives a speech. And of course the speech is about Arthur and Eames. 

“I know we have all witnessed Arthur’s lovely speech about Eames in the last episode. In fact, I believe it’s gone viral, wouldn’t you say, Arthur?” 

Arthur has no idea. Arthur makes some sort of expression with his face. He has no clue how it might be interpreted. 

Eames whispers into his ear, “I hope you weren’t thinking about my naked body when you made _that_ face.” 

“I’m going to maim you,” Arthur mumbles at him. 

Alec is ignoring them because Alec generally doesn’t seem to hear anything but the sound of his own voice. “I think we can all agree that such devotion is a truly admirable thing to find in this jaded and cynical world, and I, for one, look forward to wishing you the very best for the rest of your lives.” Alec, head still tipped for its optimum lighting, sends them a smile that looks positively garish. 

Eames says, “And if we don’t get on with opening the envelope, the rest of our lives could run out right here on this stage.” 

Light laughter ripples over the contestants, who had been looking curious and confused over Alec’s speech. 

Alec looks less amused, although he keeps his smile plastered on his face. “Ha ha, very funny, Eames. Isn’t he just hilarious?” Alec asks the contestants. “They are both so hilarious.” Alec has begun opening the envelope but he is inching it along so slowly that Arthur begins to wonder if time has stopped. Maybe one of the contestants has some kind of superpower and has stopped time.

But Arthur doesn’t say anything. Arthur keeps smiling, refusing to be provoked. 

And eventually even Alec can’t keep delaying. Eventually the envelope is open, its secret ready to be shared. 

Alec looks down at it sadly, as if appalled that it has betrayed him so by eventually being open. 

Eames says abruptly, “Darling, I think we left the oven on.” 

The contestants, who had been losing interest in the proceedings, laugh again. 

“Ah, there’s that hilariousness again,” says Alec, not looking the least bit amused. He is inching the challenge out of the envelope inch by inch. 

“I feel,” remarks Eames, with studied innocence, “like this is the longest I’ve ever experienced you to take doing anything. I mean, normally I find you to be very…” Eames pauses and says very deliberately, “Quick. One might say hair-trigger.” 

There is snorting from the contestants. 

Alec flickers a glare at Eames, although the effect is weakened by his refusal to budge his head at all. 

Arthur thinks how Eames is the worst he has ever met at following his own advice. And he kind of loves him for it. But still. 

Finally finally _finally_ Alec reads the challenge. “For this challenge, you will be designing a walk-in closet. And, to add a twist to this episode, each of you will have a judge for a mentor to guide you through the design process.” 

Arthur had forgotten that was coming up. Damn it, he’s not much in the mood to mentor at the moment. 

And it’s even worse once he hears who he’s been given to mentors: the three designers who Alec and Eames love the most but who Arthur finds too harsh and minimalist. Eames has Ariadne in his group. 

“Can we trade?” Arthur asks, when he sees that. 

“They’re clearly going for drama,” Eames says, studying Arthur’s list. “Try not to be too cruel to them, but whatever you do, don’t smile, you’re not very good at that when you’re not smiling at me.” 

“By the way,” remarks Arthur, “I thought we were just supposed to smile while the envelope was being opened. Instead of making implications about Alec’s sexual stamina.” 

“I never listen to what I say,” Eames informs him blithely. “Haven’t you noticed that?” 

“Repeatedly,” says Arthur drily. 

Eames grins and says, “I’ll be nice to your girl for you,” and kisses Arthur’s cheek.


	40. Chapter 40

Arthur is not enthusiastic about his chances for getting along with his mentees. He doesn’t generally get along with people anyway, but his mentees all know that he hasn’t been a big fan of their designs. Arthur wishes he knew what it is Eames does to charm people even when they should be hating him. Once Arthur asked him that, before they were dating, on the set of “Love It or List It,” when Arthur was tired and frustrated and just wanted to know the secret. Eames had looked at him blankly and said, “It probably involves my biceps somehow,” and Arthur hasn’t been able to get a better answer than that ever. 

And he lives with Eames’s charm now and tries to analyze it, in those moments when Eames coaxes him out of well-justified sulks. What does he _do_? As far as Arthur can tell, he is as ridiculous as possible, and Arthur just doesn’t have it in his nature to be ridiculous. 

But he’ll give it a try. 

He meets with Trizz (short for Tristan) first, in the empty walk-in closet space Trizz has been given, and he says, “I’m thinking your theme should be sex dungeon,” which is the most ridiculous thing he can think of to say, and he’s hoping it’s going to win him a smile. 

Trizz looks around him and says, “That could work. Maybe some special whip storage.” 

Arthur says, “And a sex swing,” before realizing that Trizz is absolutely serious. 

Which he realizes only when Trizz says, “Hmm, do you think there’d be enough room for proper sex swinging in this place?” 

Arthur looks at him in alarm. “I don’t actually think you should do a sex dungeon theme.” 

“But you said you did,” Trizz points out. 

“I was being ridiculous,” says Arthur. “Fuck, why does everybody think Eames is adorable when he’s ridiculous and everyone just takes me _seriously_?”

“You were joking?” says Trizz quizzically. “Huh.” 

“Look,” says Arthur. “Let’s get off the sex dungeon topic. What else are you thinking?” 

Trizz considers. “Maybe, like, torture chamber?” 

“Okay,” says Arthur. “But actually it’s just a closet, right?” 

“Nothing is ever _just_ a closet,” says Trizz mysteriously. 

“Well, my mentor advice is that you just design a closet,” suggests Arthur. 

“But you’re not actually a designer,” Trizz points out. 

“Can’t argue you with you there,” says Arthur, and then to Yusuf, who’s the cameraman who’s been tasked with following him around, “Can we move on?” 

Arthur’s next mentee is wearing a huge nametag that reads _GON_. 

Arthur studies it and says, “Hi,” and holds out his hand. “I’m Arthur.” 

Gon shakes it enthusiastically. He at least seems genuinely pleased that Arthur’s there. He at least seems to be inhabiting the same _plane_ as Arthur. “The ‘g’ is a soft ‘g,’” he explains. “Like in ‘jump.’” 

Arthur says, “‘Jump’ doesn’t have a ‘g.’” 

“Right,” says the contestant. “But the same sound.” 

“So…” says Arthur slowly, “like Jon?” 

“Oh.” Gon looks cheerful. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” 

“So what are you thinking?” Arthur asks him, deciding to forget about trying to offer a ridiculous, likeable suggestion first. 

“Well. I know that my designs haven’t always been a favorite of yours.” 

“Right,” says Arthur awkwardly. “But you—”

“So I’m really interested in learning why that is. I feel like I’m appealing right now to a very narrow aesthetic, and Alec and Eames get it, but I don’t only want to talk to them, I want to talk to the _masses_ , you know. What good is a designer who can’t sell things? So I’d really like to know why my stuff doesn’t appeal to you.” 

Gon doesn’t seem mocking or upset or offended. Gon seems genuinely interested. 

“Oh,” says Arthur, and tries to gather his thoughts. “Well, I guess it’s…Something about your designs always strikes me as too…clean.” 

“I don’t like clutter.” 

“Neither do I. But I also don’t like to feel like I’m in a hospital, you know? I want to walk in and have a room—whatever room it is—want me to be in it. I don’t want the room to look like it’s resenting my intrusion because I’m going to interrupt its lines.” 

Gon looks fascinated. “Interesting,” he muses, and then glances around at his empty closet. “So you’d feel the same way about a closet?” 

“I think so. I mean, you’re absolutely right, you don’t want a cluttered closet but you also want a closet that looks like it belongs to _you_.” 

“Not one that belongs to the monsters,” says Gon, and grins. 

Arthur is startled into a laugh and grins back. “Right. Yes. Exactly.” 

“I can do that,” says Gon. “Thanks. This was helpful. I guess we re-connect again tomorrow?” 

“I think so,” Arthur says, because he wasn’t really paying attention to the schedule. He doesn’t even care. He’s so giddy that that went well and he’s not a complete and total failure as a mentor. 

Although he might be two-out-of-three in the failure department, because things do not go well with Misty Rainbow. 

“It’s an interesting name,” Arthur remarks. 

“Do you think so?” she says. “I chose it for myself, as a symbol of new beginnings. When I picked up my life and moved it to an entirely new place. I was 25.” 

“Where’d you move to?” Arthur asks. 

“Oh, just down the hall,” answers Misty Rainbow cheerfully. “My roommate’s boyfriend was moving in and there just wasn’t space for all three of us.” 

“Oh,” says Arthur. “Okay.” He doesn’t know what to say. Maybe he should stop trying for small talk. That seemed to work well with Gon. “So what are you thinking about your closet?” 

“I’m thinking white floors, white walls, white ceiling. That’s it.” 

“That seems…simple. And stark.” 

“It’s meant to symbolize that we have too many possessions. We don’t need a closet with shelves and hangers and shoe trees. We need a space where we can sit and meditate and contemplate our lives.” 

“Right,” says Arthur, “but probably for this closet design challenge, we should design a closet. For people to store things in.” 

“Arthur,” Misty Rainbow says gravely. “I am concerned about your attachment to materialism. When’s the last time you worried about your _soul_?” 

Arthur says, “Probably when Eames told me that he sold it to the devil to finance his spaceship of a shower that we have.” 

“Oh, Arthur,” says Misty Rainbow sadly, shaking her head. “Oh, Arthur.”


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to pureimaginatrix (and possibly others??) for the idea for how they deal with Alec's tweet. 
> 
> I do read all of your comments and I love them all even if I don't always get around to responding! 
> 
> And in that spirit, I noticed pureimaginatrix asked for clarification on how long the season is: They started with twelve contestants. We're on Episode 4 now, and there are nine contestants left. There are ten episodes in the season because the final episode starts with three and ends with one person standing. Hopefully I've done that math right!

By tacit agreement, the only thing they discuss in the car on the drive home is what to order for dinner. They decide upon pizza, and Arthur says again, “One of us really has to learn how to cook.”

Eames replies, “I am very good at cooking cake batter, but we both know that doesn’t count.” 

“You’re not good at cooking cake batter. You’re good at _mixing_ cake batter.” 

“That’s a type of cooking. That’s pre-cooking. That’s Cooking: the Prequel.” 

Arthur sighs. “Let’s at least get vegetables on the pizza.” 

“Good thinking, that definitely makes it healthy.” Eames nods. 

Eames orders the pizza “with every vegetable you have.” 

So of course when it comes it’s entirely pepperoni and sausage and meatball. 

“So that worked out well,” Arthur remarks, looking down at it. 

“I think it’s my accent,” Eames decides. “Barely comprehensible.” 

“So tell me about your mentee experience,” Arthur says, snagging two pieces of pizza and sitting at the breakfast bar. 

Eames sits on the kitchen counter because Eames is terrible at eating on a flat surface like a normal adult human. He says, “You go first. How are Trizz and Gon and Misty Rainbow?” 

“It’s pronounced Jon, first of all,” Arthur corrects him. 

“And gif,” says Eames. 

“No, that’s not how you say ‘gif,’” Arthur says, “and we’re not having this debate again. Also, Misty Rainbow named herself.” 

“You had a lot of discussions about names.” 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t want to know where Misty Rainbow came from.”

“What would you name yourself if you could?” 

“Arthur,” says Arthur. “I think it suits me.” 

Eames shakes his head fondly and says, “Yes. It does.” 

“Why? What would you name yourself?” 

Eames considers. Then he says, “Dick.” 

“I know you’re thinking that that’s some clever reference to your impressive anatomy but actually it’s just a spot-on description of your personality,” says Arthur.

“It has many meanings,” Eames says. “It’s multi-layered.” 

“We might as well make your middle name ‘Asshole’ while we’re at it.” 

“Also multi-layered,” Eames says. “My name could be analyzed like a good poem.” 

“Yeah, we all know that famous poem by Browning: ‘Dick Asshole.’” 

“Isn’t that the poem about the duke that murders his duchess?” rejoins Eames. 

“Do you know how much I wish sometimes that I’d met you in college? I can never decide if I would have been fascinated by you or if I would have wanted to shoot you.” 

“Darling, you couldn’t decide that when you met me, anyway.” 

“Good point. At least most of the time now I don’t want to shoot you.”

“It’s times like these when one can sense the romantic soul you have lurking within you. ‘Our relationship is lovely and solid, he mostly doesn’t want to shoot me anymore.’”

“We are very far off-track,” says Arthur, and contemplates having another piece of the pizza that is a heart attack on a plate. 

“Right. So tell me about Misty Rainbow et al.” 

“Right now Trizz’s theme for his closet is ‘torture chamber.’ Meanwhile, Misty Rainbow is refusing to design a closet at all because it’s a shrine to consumerism or something.” 

“She’s an interior designer,” remarks Eames. “The entire career is a shrine to consumerism.” 

“See? You should have been her mentor.” 

“What did you say to her?” 

“That I thought most people would want to keep things in their closets. And then she worried about the state of my soul and so I told her, no big deal on that front, you sold it to the devil so we could afford your over-the-top shower.” 

Eames gives him a look. “Don’t pretend you don’t bloody adore that shower. You love that shower more than me, I think. You would _marry_ that shower.” 

This is true, and it also reminds Arthur of their other problem. “Let’s not talk about things I would and wouldn’t marry.” 

“No, that’s a nice segue. I have a solution to all of that. Actually, Ariadne had the solution.” 

“The solution? What’s the solution?” 

Eames shakes his head. “No, that was your preview. First finish telling me about your mentees. How’s Gon-pronounced-Jon?” 

“I like him, actually. He was genuinely interested in what I had to say. I have hope for him.” 

“High praise.” 

“Tell me about yours.” 

“Maria’s a little dull,” Eames says. “If we don’t count the fact that she told me her name should be pronounced Mahreea.” 

“Did they choose the contestants for this show based on their weird names?” 

Eames shrugs and goes for another piece of the heart-attack pizza, because Eames has no qualms about these things, probably because Eames doesn’t have a bunch of bespoke suits to worry about fitting into for as long as possible. “Anyway, she’s designing a pretty standard, inoffensive wardrobe. I’m trying to get her to think a little bit outside the box on it. I know you’re not a fan of the more out-there designs but I at least like to think people have a little imagination. Scott’s also very practical, but he has really interesting ideas on new storage systems and such, so I’m looking forward to it, I think.” 

“His name is Scott?” Arthur lifts an eyebrow. “Not ‘Cott’? No ‘silent s’?”

“No, the last ‘t’ is silent,” says Eames. 

Arthur laughs and gives in on the desire for another piece of pizza. 

“Which brings us to Ariadne. Who is _delightful_ and I adore her. She is very worried about you.” 

“Worried about me? Why?” 

“Because you have a horrible philandering boyfriend who fucks arseholes who wear fedoras, and she is very concerned that I do not pay enough attention to the fact that you’re very emotionally vulnerable under your pinstriped armor and you love me very much and if I hurt you she will castrate me because she is your guardian pixie sprite and she has the power to do that.” 

“Oh, Christ,” says Arthur, feeling the blush on the tips of his ears. “Did she say all that?” 

“Yes. You made an impression on her. She likes you a lot.” 

“I practically had sex with her furniture,” Arthur says. “So probably that goes a long way.” 

“And also you’re a nice person who’s very likable and we’re not going to debate that so don’t even start with me,” says Eames mildly. 

Arthur lets it go and says, “Since the ‘no fraternizing’ rule seems to have been loosened for this challenge, maybe I can go talk to her and tell her that you’re not a horrible boyfriend.” 

“I think I convinced her,” says Eames. 

Arthur concedes that that’s probably true. Eames’s famous charm at work. “Well, at least you got her and not Alec. I shudder to think what she might have said to Alec.” 

“I think Mal was hoping to feed the Twitter rumors about you sleeping with her. People will be curious to know how we interact.” 

“It’s the first time I’ve been grateful for a ridiculous Twitter rumor,” says Arthur. 

“So Ariadne’s a good designer and she’s got this wardrobe thing covered so we spent a lot of time talking about you and us and true love and fate and all of those good things.” 

“Was there wine involved?” asks Arthur, because Eames gets dreadfully philosophical after a bottle of wine. He fancies himself part of some French _salon_ culture and asks ridiculous questions like _If you could live in a dream, what would it look like?_

“No, Mal is bloody stingy with alcohol on set, have you noticed?”

“It’s almost like she wants us to be sober and professional,” deadpans Arthur. 

Eames snorts. “‘Professional’ is the opposite of what Mal wants from us. So, anyway, I was saying how Alec had gone and made an obnoxious tweet about wedding bells and how we wanted to try to defuse the situation without making any engagement announcement and she had this fantastic idea: We defuse it through humor. We make a joke. It shows Alec how not bothered we are by it and it shows the rest of the world that we don’t care, either. Wedding bells, no wedding bells, no difference to our relationship.” 

“Okay,” says Arthur thoughtfully. “But what would the joke be?” 

“Ariadne had that covered, too. Funny you should mention how you wanted to have sex with her furniture…”


	42. Chapter 42

Arthur’s the one who sends out the tweet. They debate for a little while whose Twitter account it should come from, and they finally decide that if Eames sends it, it will do little to dispel the impression that Arthur wants more from Eames and Eames is fickle and flighty and possibly fucking Alec Hart. But, they think, if Arthur sends it, it shows that Arthur is tremendously good-natured about the whole thing and not the least bit concerned. (The latter part is true, of course, even if Arthur is not terribly good-natured about Alec being annoying as fuck.)

So Arthur tweets, _Getting lots of questions about @AlecHart’s wedding bells tweet, so I am forced to confirm: Yes. I am indeed marrying Ariadne’s cashmere couch. Please don’t judge our love, it is pure and deep._

Eames retweets the tweet and adds as a hashtag _#arthur4couch_. 

The hashtag picks up and gains momentum and Arthur feels sleeky self-satisfied when they go back to mentor again the next day (and only part of that is because of Eames showing him the advantages of a large, multi-spray shower stall that morning). 

Alec is there when they get there but he doesn’t even deign to talk to them, going off immediately to check on his mentees’ progress. 

Arthur sits in the makeup chair and Julia says, “Look at the color in your cheeks and how bright your eyes are. I barely have to do any of my usual makeup magic.” 

“Fuck you,” Arthur says cheerfully, “I never need ‘makeup magic.’” 

“He has natural leprechaun magic,” says Eames, wandering in with a cup of tea he’s made for himself while he waits for Julia to be done with Arthur. 

“Being engaged to a couch agrees with you,” says Julia. 

“I am a very lucky man,” agrees Arthur, looking at Eames as he says it, because, well, it’s an unforgivably sentimental thing to think but it’s also _true_. 

Eames says, “Leprechauns generally are.”

And Arthur thinks to himself, _How the fuck did you fall in love with that ridiculous man?_ , and then Eames looks up from his tea and smiles at him one of those bright, unguarded smiles he has and Arthur thinks, _You never stood a chance_. 

***

Trizz’s closet is no longer an empty space. Trizz has painted it a dark gray and installed iron brazier lights along the walls, tucked in among a variety of weirdly sized shelving. The shelving is interesting but very little of it is big enough for something as practical as a pair of shoes. Arthur supposes maybe you could shove some socks into those little cubbyholes but who owns that many pairs of socks? And even if you owned that many pairs of socks, where would you store everything else? 

There is, without question, a definite atmosphere to Trizz’s design. Arthur doesn’t care for it personally—the dark, close, cold gray makes him shudder and long for his closet at home, which Eames did in a wine color rich enough that Arthur is irresistibly drawn into it—but he does see Eames’s point about having imagination. Trizz definitely has imagination. 

Arthur says, “Okay. I see what you’re trying to do here.” 

“But?” prompts Trizz sarcastically. 

“It isn’t very practical, is it?” 

Trizz begins to protest. “It’s a _design_ \--”

“I can see that,” Arthur interrupts him calmly. “And I respect your design. But I just want to point out that designers have clients. Now maybe your client is really into torture chamber chic. I’m sure that’s a possibility. But your client is still going to want an _actual, functional closet_. And I know you’re going to point out that I’m not a real designer and I can’t argue with that but I can tell you this: I am a person who really likes clothes. So I know what I’m talking about when I talk about clothes storage. And I’m not clipping a six-hundred-dollar shirt to a manacle.” 

This appears to give Trizz pause, as if he had not expected Arthur to raise such a valid point. And as if it literally had never occurred to him that manacles did not make good hanging vehicles for clothing. 

Arthur leaves Trizz to contemplate his feedback and moves on to Gon. 

And Gon’s closet is _lovely_. Gon’s installed a plush white carpet that is thoroughly impractical but is nonetheless undeniably alluring. He’s installed shelving and hanging space all around the perimeter of the closet, but the center of the closet is given over to a gorgeous curly-cue of a coat rack that is a work of art in and of itself. It rises like a fountain from the middle of a round banquette sofa done in ice blue suede and just begging to be sat on. 

Arthur looks at it in delight and says, “This is fantastic.” 

Gon is beaming with pride. “I thought you’d like it. It seemed more you.” 

It _is_ more him. His current closet doesn’t look anything like this, is much sleeker, because Eames said he needed to balance the softness of their bedroom. And Arthur does love his current closet, but this room Gon has created is very, very him. 

Arthur says, “Did you design the coat rack yourself? It’s like a gorgeous sculpture.” 

Gon nods. “I figured there wasn’t much room for art in a closet, but I wanted there to be something. You can use it for coats, like you say, or, you know, hats.” Gon gives him a smile where the wink is implied. 

Arthur laughs and says, “I like you, Gon.” 

“Can you say that on camera?” 

Arthur waves his hand dismissively and says, “So I have to say that if you were designing this room for me, you’ve hit it out of the park. But.” 

Gon’s face falls a little bit. “But?” 

“I think maybe I’ve taken you too far in my direction. I’m not sure there’s anything of you in this room. And there should be both. Like, our house is definitely designed with me in mind but you also would never be able to mistake it for anyone’s design work but Eames’s. All of Eames’s rooms are like that. They all scream Eames. He’s in every inch of them. I wanted to make sure you paid more attention to the people who were going to inhabit your rooms but I think they should still say something about you.” 

Gon looks around his closet thoughtfully. “A blend.”

“Exactly.” 

“I’ve got ideas,” Gon says. “I think I can do that.” 

“Good,” says Arthur and leaves him to it and goes to see Misty Rainbow. 

Arthur had expected Misty Rainbow’s closet to still be a stark white space. He’s surprised to find that it’s not. She’s painted the ceiling blue and she’s carpeted it with a soft green rug and there’s a mural of cartoonish rolling hills and trees in the distance on the walls. A few painted sheep graze on the painted meadows with their painted flowers and Arthur thinks unavoidably of fanfiction and sex and also thinks how Eames is an asshole for causing that mental link on his part. 

Misty Rainbow says, “I thought about what you said about my previous design idea being too simple. And I decided that you’re right. If we are going to look inside ourselves, we should do it in beautiful surroundings. So I have brought the outside in. So that we can bring what is inside…” Misty Rainbow closes her hands into fists over her heart, and then dramatically flings them forth, opening her fingers wide and fluttering. “Out!” she exclaims. 

“Ah,” says Arthur, unsure how else to react. After a second he adds, “But there’s still no storage space.” 

“Sit with me, Arthur,” Misty Rainbow says, sinking to the carpet, “and let us contemplate our souls.” 

Arthur doesn’t really want to contemplate his soul but he sits so as to not cause a scene. Misty Rainbow closes her eyes. Arthur, after a second, feeling like an idiot, follows suit. 

Misty Rainbow says, after a long moment of silence, “What have you learned about your soul, Arthur?” 

“That it would really like somewhere to hang my shirts,” says Arthur. 

“Oh, Arthur,” sighs Misty Rainbow. “Oh, Arthur.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're hitting refresh, there's going to be a gap until later on tonight. ;-)


	43. Chapter 43

Mal makes them do judge interviews, because, she says, Arthur’s was such a “huge success” last episode. 

“Tell us about this week,” Mal says. 

Arthur says how much he enjoyed mentoring and how it was illuminating to see the designs from the other side. 

Mal prompts, “Does Eames not talk to you about design?”

“No, he does,” says Arthur. “But his process is different. That’s what was illuminating: they all had such different process, such different approaches.” 

“What do you think makes Eames’s approach unique?” 

“His sense of fun,” says Arthur immediately. “That he doesn’t take it too seriously. That he invites you to have fun in the room, too.” 

“And how do you feel about Eames?” 

“How do I feel about him?” Arthur repeats drily. 

“Yes,” says Mal, and makes a gesture with her hand that Arthur isn’t sure is meant to be coaxing or threatening. 

Arthur says, “I’m not going to make some kind of heartfelt speech about Eames in every single interview, Mal.” 

“Just a little one?” says Mal hopefully. 

Arthur shakes his head. 

Mal swears—Arthur assumes—in French. And then she says, “It is very not-French of you.” 

“And yet I do have French blood in me.” 

“I do not believe it,” insists Mal, and waves him away wearily. 

They do Alec’s team first, because Mal says they’re going in alphabetical order. Alec is practically bouncing with enthusiasm. He has not really said a word to them about anything, and Arthur is bracing for whatever new approach Alec’s attack will take this time, but all Alec does is introduce his first mentee and then stand aside and look very somber. 

The mentee’s closet is gray-and-white-striped and it’s meant to represent the prisons that are prevalent in modern society, both institutional and personal. Alec presses a hand over his heart and then over his mentee’s, and then he says to Arthur and Eames, “Don’t you just feel it…” Alec’s hand goes back over his heart. “ _Here_?”

At least Alec didn’t touch him, so Arthur considers this a victory. 

He says, “Well, at least it has storage space,” even though all of the little cubbyholes are in fact little prison cells. 

“There is a great deal of commitment to the theme,” says Eames. 

“I thought a lot about what you tweeted, about how the design should speak for itself but also we should be prepared to speak on its behalf,” says the mentee earnestly. 

“Yes, well,” says Eames, looking around the space. “It definitely speaks for itself.” 

Alec says, as they move on to his next contestant, “Wasn’t it just the most moving thing you’ve ever seen?” 

“It did make me want to cry,” says Eames gravely. 

Arthur bites his lip so he won’t laugh. 

“If you think that one was moving, wait until you see this one!” exclaims Alec, and reveals his next contestant’s closet. 

This closet has an under the sea theme, and while it’s a bit over-the-top (typical, Arthur thinks, for a room supervised by Alec), Arthur thinks it’s somewhat clever. The paint on the walls has a shimmery incandescence that recalls sunlight on water and there’s something very soothing about the space. 

“What are these meant to be?” asks Eames, pointing to a series of vases and flasks and decanters that all appear to be filled with water and that are scattered throughout the closet. 

“Decoration,” responds the contestant. 

“I’ve never seen vases of water used for decoration before,” remarks Eames. 

“Isn’t it inventive?” asks Alec. “I think it will definitely be the newest thing.” 

“You could probably color the water, right?” suggests Arthur. “A little bit of food coloring?” Because the closet could use a bit of color. Everything in it has a washed-out quality. 

Eames nods and looks about to add something else but the contestant interrupts with, “But then you would lose the point.” 

“The point?” says Eames. 

“This is about crying,” says the contestant. “This is about drowning in your own tears. This is about a sadness that overwhelms you until you can’t breathe.” 

Alec is nodding with his scrunch-face of concern on. His hand is clasped so hard against his chest, Arthur thinks it could burrow straight through the skin. 

Eames says, “I’m…worried about you.” 

“Oh, I’m fine,” says the contestant airily. “Just wanted to make a statement.” 

“This might have been a situation where letting the design speak for itself would be better,” says Arthur. 

Alec says, “I have saved the best for last. The _best_.” 

“What could possibly be better than a vale of endless tears?” asks Arthur. 

Eames chokes on his laughter. 

The closet is filled with coffins. 

Eames says, “Is this the part where we realize we’ve been surrounded by vampires all this time? Darling, run, save yourself.” 

“Oh, and you’re going to fight off an entire horde of vampires yourself?” 

“I will try,” Eames says dramatically, “for you.” And then he rests his hand over Arthur’s heart. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and pushes it away. 

Alec bites out, “This has nothing to do with vampires. Why would you think that?” 

“Because the room’s full of coffins,” Eames points out. 

“So?” Alec demands haughtily. 

“Vampires sleep in coffins,” says Eames. 

“Vampires aren’t real. And, if they were, how would you presume to know what they sleep in?” says Alec, positioning his head so he can look down his nose at Eames without his fucking fedora falling off. 

“You’re quite right,” says Eames. “Very presumptuous of me. How dare I pretend to be a vampire expert. Please, carry on.” 

“Is my contestant allowed to explain now?” clips out Alec. 

“Yes. Please,” says Eames politely. 

Alec’s contestant says, “Alec said we needed to find an emotional story to connect to with regard to the closets. So, I don’t know, I thought about it, and I guess the most emotional thing that can happen in anyone’s life is death.” The girl shrugs. 

Alec, scrunch-face in position, nods and says, “Yes, yes, too true,” and shakes his head mournfully over the fact of death. 

“So, you know, coffins,” concludes the girl, and gestures to them helpfully. Then she adds, “They act as storage.” 

Eames opens one up, and she has indeed folded some articles of clothing into them. “Well, that’s clever, at least. And no dead body in sight.”

“What about the rest of the room?” asks Arthur, studying the busy carpet and the even busier Victorian wallpaper. 

“I figured if I was going to do death, I might as well do full old-fashioned gothic. It’s meant to be reminiscent of an old funeral parlor.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur, because this room is spooky as hell. “I can see that.” 

“I respect that you tried to find an emotional connection to this room,” Eames says. 

“Me, too,” says Arthur. “But I do think sometimes a closet could just be a closet. Like, just a place to put clothing. It doesn’t need to be an emotional experience.”

“You might want to save the emotional experience for more commonly used rooms,” suggests Eames. “For instance, I think a kitchen modeled after a morgue would be a really interesting idea.” 

The girl chuckles and says, “Yeah, I’m sure Alec would love that idea.”

Alec frowns at her and says, as they leave the room, “I am not sure she appreciated the lesson I was trying to teach her.” 

Arthur’s team is next. Trizz has improved his closet slightly by adding some actual rods to hang things from. 

Eames looks around and guesses, “Torture chamber?” 

Trizz nods. 

“Why’d you go with that?” asks Eames. 

“Thought it seemed cool. Arthur suggested sex dungeon but I think it’s overdone.”

“I was joking—” Arthur begins, and then says, “Wait, you think sex dungeon closets are _overdone_?” 

“They’re a little bit last year,” Trizz tells him with regret, as if he’s sorry he has to break to Arthur the news of his uncoolness. 

Arthur is very, very proud of Gon’s closet. He loves it. Gon listened to his advice and has made a few tweaks to make it look more like his work. He’s rounded the edges of the shelves and added a few mirrored backs to them. It’s subtle, but it recalls his clean style more than the previous design had. And he’s left the centerpiece of the coatrack, which Arthur is in love with. 

Alec says, “I don’t get the coatrack. It’s cluttering up the space.” 

“The coatrack?” exclaims Arthur. “But the coatrack is the best part! It’s a little piece of art!” 

“Hmm,” Alec says dubiously. And then, “The mirrors are a nice touch, at least. Reflecting the narcissism of the person who would inhabit such a self-absorbed closet.” 

Eames looks at the coatrack and says, “Looks like a perfect place to hang a hat, don’t you think?” 

Alec isn’t amused, of course, but Gon twitches a smile Eames’s way and gets a wink in response. 

So Arthur’s a little glowing as they go to Misty Rainbow’s room, because he helped shape Gon’s room and Eames clearly liked it and he maybe didn’t have all that much to do with it and can’t take all that much credit but he can’t help feeling pleased. 

Misty Rainbow’s room is still green-carpeted and muraled but she has made changes. There is a single rod installed with a couple of hangers on it. And now the ceiling is painted a stormy gray and the sheep that had been grazing on the meadows are all apparently dead. Or at least bleeding profusely. Out of their eyes. 

Misty Rainbow sits in the middle of the room and says, “This was going to be a calming room, but if it had to be a room of consumerism, then it couldn’t be a calming room, could it? It had to remind the user of the consumerism every day, of the user’s _ignorance of their soul_.” Misty Rainbow gives Arthur a significant look. 

Eames catches the look and lifts his eyebrows in amusement. And then he says, “After spending some time in this room, I think that I’d want to go curl up in the room of tears. Or the room of death. I guess it would depend on the state of my soul.” 

Arthur just sighs, because he tried the best he could with Misty Rainbow’s closet. 

Eames’s team is as Eames had described them: Maria’s design is solid but has nothing very unique about it. It is simply a well-organized closet space. Which is actually a smart strategy on this show, Arthur thinks. If everyone around you is going to design like lunatics, just stay boring and middle-of-the-road and you’d probably be okay for a while. 

Scott’s design is aesthetically not terribly interesting, but his storage design is fascinating, full of interesting little cubbyholes that fold in on themselves and a stacking rod system that Arthur loves and wants to have installed at home. 

Alec says Maria’s closet is “dull” and Scott’s “has no vision.” 

Ariadne comes last, and at first it just seems like an ordinary closet space. Ariadne has used hardwood for the floor, and interesting chandeliers that look like sinuous rivers of crystal droplets, and there’s a casual coziness to the space that Arthur has come to expect from Ariadne’s design. But he’s a little disappointed because he has also come to expect something _more_. 

Alec is interrogating Ariadne as to the “emotion” of the room. 

“Fun,” Ariadne answers. “Eames was a great mentor because he helped me realize exactly how far I could take fun as an element of design. I’ve always been playing around with it covertly—the Escher apartment was just one great big wink, I think—but I decided to just make this room entirely a game.” 

Which is exactly the point at which Arthur reaches the back corner of the room and realizes that it doesn’t end. Ariadne’s closet had seemed smaller to Arthur upon first glance, and that’s because it _is_ smaller. Ariadne has constructed a room within a room. Actually, a room within a maze, Arthur realizes. The hardwood floor shifts to dark wood, and then back to light, in zigzag patterns. The walls of the maze are also interlocking zigzags of woods, arranged in intricate mosaic patterns. It’s not a big maze, but there are definite forks and one dead end, so Arthur thinks it qualifies. 

He circles back and finds Ariadne and Eames both waiting for him, both grinning. 

“This is _fabulous_ ,” he says. 

“It’s just a closet,” says Alec. 

“It’s a maze,” says Arthur. “Granted, a tiny maze, but a _maze_.” 

“There’s more,” says Ariadne eagerly. “Let me show you.” 

It turns out the wood along the walls can be manipulated and moved to reveal hidden storage behind it. The mosaics can apparently be rearranged into multiple patterns, and each pattern opens up a different space. 

“It’s like a grown-up treasure hunt, in a way,” Ariadne says. 

“I love it,” says Arthur. 

“That is not a surprise,” mutters Alec. 

“It’s a _maze_ , Alec,” Eames says. “What’s not to like about it?” 

“It’s hardly functional, to have a maze for a closet.” 

“You think functional closets are dull and uninspired and lack emotion,” Arthur points out. “This has emotion. It’s just a different sort of emotion. There are more emotions in the world than those inspired by death and crying.” 

“Oh, God,” says Alec, “are you going to tell me to think of emotions inspired by _true love_? All flowers and puppies?” 

“This is just how Arthur gets when he gets engaged to couches,” Eames says. 

“It’s true. I cannot contain my joy. We’ll have the reception in your closet maze, Ariadne. I think my couch will love your hardwood floors.” 

Ariadne grins at him and says, “My couch, wasn’t it?” 

“I think the couch is going to take my name, though,” says Arthur.

Alec apparently has enough of this conversation, because he simply walks out of the closet. 

Arthur lags behind Eames as they follow Alec out of the closet so he can murmur to Ariadne, “Eames told me that you’re worried about me and you really don’t need to be. He’s good, he’s great, he’s good for me and to me and I’m happy. I get to be a mess when I keep things bottled up and generally he’s really good at noticing and not letting me. He catches it, like, ninety-nine percent of the time.” 

Ariadne smiles at him. “Yeah, I get that now. He’s nice. I like him.” 

“That feeling was mutual,” Arthur tells her. 

“I get the impression he likes anyone who likes you.” 

Arthur tries not to blush and is about to respond when Mal shouts, “You two! No fraternizing!” 

“Got to go,” Arthur says, and jogs over to where Alec, Eames, and Mal are waiting. Alec and Mal are both frowning at him like he just got caught trying to steal the Mona Lisa or something. Arthur says innocently, “I was just explaining to her about the couch tweet, to make sure she understood the joke.” 

Mal purses her lips but doesn’t pursue it. She says, “Because you three were so involved in the designs this time around, you will not be judging them.” 

“Who’ll be judging them?” asks Eames. 

“The public,” says Mal, smiling hugely, clearly proud of herself. “Via the Internet. So I want to see a lot of campaigning on social media. Team Alec, Team Arthur, Team Eames. Those are your hashtags.” 

“Team Eames,” complains Eames. “That’s a terrible hashtag. It’s like a Dr. Seuss rhyme gone awry.” 

“It’s your name,” Mal points out. “There’s not much you can do about it.”

“Can I pick my own name?” asks Eames brightly. 

“No,” says Arthur immediately, because God knows what Eames would choose. 

“You’re no fun,” Eames pouts. “I’m going to call your team Team No-Fun.” 

“No, he’s Team Arthur,” Mal says, as if Eames needs the reminder. 

“Team Arthur,” Arthur says to Eames, just to reiterate it. 

“Team Darling,” says Eames, smiling at him, and kisses his right dimple. 

Alec says, “Are we done here, then?” 

Mal says, “Yes,” even though it’s apparently a moot point because Alec has already walked away. Mal says to Eames again, “Team Eames. Team Arthur.” 

“Got it, Mal,” Eames tells her. “ _Absolutement_. Just, hang on, one quick question, am _I_ Team Arthur? And he’s Team Eames? Or is it…Wait, who’s Team Alec?” 

Mal stalks off, muttering in French.


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of thanks on this one: 
> 
> Thank you to Ocelot_Summer for the suggestion of what happens in the #arthur4couch Twitter tag. 
> 
> Thank you to Cricketcat9 and addiemay for making me think about patron saints. 
> 
> Thank you to Aja, who just Tumblr'd something about Arthur and Eames and portmanteau names. 
> 
> And thank you to Chocolamousse for the oral line. 
> 
> And I think I caught everything! Thanks, guys, for all the little pieces of inspiration that were maybe less explicitly embodied in here!

“This Arthur-for-couch hashtag is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Eames says from where he’s sprawled in preparation for Viewing Day. 

“Look at you,” remarks Arthur and settles on the couch where Eames has left him some room. “On time for a Viewing Day.”

“Well, your gift’s in the process of being made.”

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. “What did I say about Viewing Day gifts?” 

“Oh,” says Eames. “I thought you just meant no Viewing Day gifts for last episode.” 

“No, I mean it for _every_ episode.” 

“Seriously, have you been tracking this hashtag?” asks Eames. 

“I notice you pretending not to hear me,” says Arthur. 

“Look at this.” Eames hands over his tablet. 

Arthur stares at the photograph. “What is this?” 

“It’s you in a tuxedo and a couch in a veil.”

“Yes. A couch in a veil. I can see that. What _is_ this?” 

“Your wedding picture, darling.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, scrolling through the tag. “What the fuck _is_ all this?” He holds up a picture of a couch in a Photoshopped bikini. “Arthur’s couch wife on their honeymoon,” he reads. 

“It’s genius, darling,” Eames says, taking the tablet back. “And anyway, let them Photoshop all the pictures they like, as long as they’ve stopped Photoshopping pictures of Alec and me and stopped asking us questions about our wedding.” 

“Okay, fine, fair point,” Arthur allows. 

“Here’s a good one. ‘Do you think Arthur will make another gorgeous love-drenched speech tonight? Hashtag Arthur for everything, hashtag be still my heart.’ Reply: ‘Not unless it’s to a couch lol.’ I love the Internet.” 

“Is there fanfiction about the couch and me?” asks Arthur, turning the television on and cuddling underneath the fleece-and-feather blanket. 

“Oh, my God, I didn’t even think to look!” exclaims Eames, sounding appalled with himself. “I am slipping!” 

“Don’t look,” Arthur says, and nudges at Eames with his foot. 

“You’re the one who brought it up.” 

“Stop it,” Arthur says, reaching for the tablet, but he’s laughing even as he says it. 

“Hey, why are you trying to deny me fun?” Eames complains, trying to dodge Arthur. 

Arthur grabs the tablet but loses his balance over Eames. “You have a bad definition of the word ‘fun.’”

Eames tugs to pull him in closer, murmurs with an eyebrow waggle, “But, darling, I want to know what filthy things you get up to with your couch.” 

“You want to know what filthy things I get up to?” Arthur asks, wriggling a little bit on top of Eames. 

Eames grins at him and nods. “Definitely. With your couch.” 

“What about an Eames lounge?” 

“Did you just make a pun on my name, darling? I’m so proud.” 

“Shut up,” says Arthur, kissing him. 

“Last time on ‘Next Big Thing,’” says the television. 

Eames rubs his nose against Arthur’s and says, “Filthy things involving an Eames lounge. I’ve already read that fic.” 

“Oh, God,” says Arthur. 

“It’s called ‘Having Eames on Eames.’”

“ _Christ_ ,” says Arthur. “Is it?” 

“The look on your face,” says Eames, amused, and cups a hand around his head to hold him in place while he kisses him. “I love you madly.” 

They miss the previously scenes, but Arthur considers it well worth it. 

“We can’t make out through the whole episode,” Arthur reminds Eames when they come up for air. “We’re supposed to be campaigning on social media.” 

Eames takes the tablet from Arthur and tweets _#TeamEames_. “All campaigned,” he says, showing it to Arthur, and tries to pull Arthur in again. 

“Behave,” Arthur tells him, and pulls back instead, settling on the opposite end of the couch. But he leaves their legs tangled together as a warm, reassuring point of contact and arranges the blanket over the both of them. 

Alec says on the screen, to Arthur making coffee next to him, “I think it was a very successful episode.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Arthur says in real life. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Are they going to do this whole disaster?” 

He watches himself drawl, “Don’t you need to go make sure you get into optimum lighting space?” 

Alec says there are no hard feelings about the eye. Arthur looks like an idiot in response. Alec praises Arthur’s faith in Eames. Arthur continues to look like an idiot in response. 

_Awwwwwwwwkward_ , Twitter is saying, and _What is Alec even talking about right now???_

Eames appears onscreen, saying, “Hello,” and then kissing Arthur. “Lovely morning, yes?” 

Twitter finds this predictably adorable. They also seem to be big fans of the conversation that follows. _LIKE A YETI SIGHTING_ and _Did he just equate fedoras with Yeti? #arthur4everything #eamesftw_. 

Luckily the episode skips forward at that point. None of the escalating conversation that had led to the wedding tweet is included. Arthur is eternally grateful. Onscreen Alec is getting positioned for lighting and appears to be looking daggers at Arthur and Eames, who are filmed as being huddled in a corner together, basically nuzzling. They’d been discussing what to do about the wedding tweet, but it looks far more romantic from a distance. 

And then Arthur kisses Eames hard and it looks a little filthier on camera than he had quite intended. 

“That is definitely not going to help the sex club rumors, I feel,” remarks Eames. 

Twitter _is_ exploding. 

_WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. DID THAT COME FROM MY FEVERED FANTASIES? DID EVERYONE SEE THAT? #ARTHUR4EVERYTHING #EVER_

_Forget about the rest of the episode, I am just going to rewind that moment for the next few hours, don’t mind me #arthur4everything_

_Oh, my God, can the man KISS. #arthur4everything #illbeinmybunk_

_#arthur4everything #arthur4judicioususeoftongue_

_That makes up for the lack of Arthur-ass-while-climbing shots we’ve had recently. I guess I’ll take this trade #arthur4everything_

_Here is the gif. In case anyone wants it. OF COURSE YOU WANT IT #arthur4everything_

_No, in all seriousness, does the sex club take applications? Is it a matter of donations? How do I get in??? #arthur4everything #me4findingmenwhokisslikethat_

_Do you think Sebastian Stan taught him how to kiss like that?_

“Can you set a gif as your phone screen wallpaper?” Eames asks. 

“You are not going have a semi-pornographic gif of us making out as your wallpaper,” Arthur tells him. 

“Hang on, I’m telling Twitter that you are indeed a very good kisser and your technique is top-notch, hashtag Eames very much for Arthur.” 

Arthur groans and pulls the blanket up over his head. 

And even though he and Eames have been talking and reading tweets, they still haven’t missed the reading of the challenge onscreen, because Alec drew it out for such an impossibly long period of time. 

Arthur hears Eames make his remark about Alec’s hair-trigger and Twitter dissolves into _lol_ s. 

“That was a hit with Twitter,” Arthur says. 

“Of course it was, it was a good line. Come out from under that blanket.” 

“Are you still tweeting about my kissing technique?”

“No, I’ve moved on to your blowjob technique.” 

He hasn’t. Arthur checks Eames’s Twitter and actually Eames’s only tweet after his _#TeamEames_ tweet is _Yes, I’m very lucky. Yes, you should be jealous. #teamdarling_ which is actually fairly sweet. 

So Arthur comes out from under the blanket.

And onscreen Alec announces that they’re going to be mentoring the contestants and Arthur’s face looks like he’s being led to the firing squad. 

_Arthur is the patron saint of reaction gifs_ , says Twitter, and the episode moves into its first commercial. 

It’s weird to be involved in the entire episode of the show. Arthur watches himself go through his coaching of his mentees, and his face is generally as beautifully reaction-giffy as Twitter could ever want. Eames watches everything very closely and says at one point, “Darling, you did such a beautiful job with Gon, really,” and if Arthur was a peacock he thought he’d fan his tail out at that. The Internet, of course, especially loves Misty Rainbow and trends _#oharthur_. 

Alec’s mentoring sessions are just as ridiculous as Arthur would have guessed. 

“I actually feel bad for her,” Arthur says of the coffin girl. 

“She’ll survive,” Eames says confidently. “The Internet loves snark.” 

Eames is an amiable, affable mentor, which Arthur knew he would be. Maria and Scott both clearly adore him. He tries genially to push Maria out of her comfort zone, and she blushes and stays firm. 

“I think it’s a strategy,” Arthur says. “She’s just going to let everybody else self-destruct.” 

“Not a bad strategy,” says Eames. 

“Also I think she has a huge crush on you and could barely function when your attention was on her.” 

“I have that effect on people,” agrees Eames. 

Twitter seems to agree. _I’d just babble and blush at Eames, too, if he was standing that close to me and actually *talking to me.*_

Scott is lukewarm on the aesthetics of his closet but incredibly enthusiastic about the structural design, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch Eames nurture that, making crucial suggestions along the way. 

And Eames’s sessions with Ariadne are, well, somewhat ridiculous. Eames wasn’t joking when he’d said they mostly just sat around chatting. 

The mentoring session starts off with Ariadne saying, “So. This thing with you and Alec is very concerning to me because I happen to be Arthur’s guardian pixie sprite and I take that job very seriously and you need to understand that he looks pulled together but he’s very emotionally vulnerable and if you hurt him I will cut off your (beep).” 

“Christ,” says Arthur, feeling the blush and debating hiding himself under the blanket again. Just what he needs: everyone talking about how emotionally vulnerable he is. 

Although no one seems to be talking about that. When Arthur checks Twitter, everyone is just saying things like, _THANK YOU, ARIADNE_ and _#ariadne4arthur_.

Onscreen Eames says, “And here I thought he just liked your designs. I didn’t know that transformed you into a guardian pixie sprite.” 

( _I WANT A GUARDIAN PIXIE SPRITE_ , says Twitter.)

“Well, that’s the rule,” Ariadne says. “Got to protect people with an appreciation for feather boa chairs.” 

“Good cover,” Arthur says. “By both of you.” At least it looks a little bit plausible that he and Ariadne weren’t fraternizing. 

“She’s quick on her feet,” Eames says. 

Eames onscreen says, “There is no thing with me and Alec. It was all a very long time ago. And I’ll watch Arthur, I promise. I heard his speech about me, too.” 

Ariadne regards Eames appraisingly, then says, “Good.” 

And then they are fast friends and they spend the rest of the episode gossiping together. Sometimes it’s about Arthur. 

“Once I told him he had too many ties, and he said he didn’t, and I thought I’d prove my point by stealing one of his ties, and he noticed _immediately_ ,” Eames tells Ariadne onscreen.

“Asshole,” Arthur tells Eames in real life. 

But a lot of the time it’s about nonsense. 

“If you could live in a dream,” Eames asks onscreen, “what would it look like?” 

“Paris,” Ariadne answers. “Only the sky would be Paris, too. An upside-down Paris. Like, you’d look up at the sky and see the rooftops of the building you’re standing next to.” 

“Like a mirror sky,” Eames says. 

“Or a very complex maze. I really love mazes.” 

“You’re sure you weren’t drinking?” Arthur asks suspiciously as he watches, because he’s had that question directed to him before and it always involved a tragic amount of alcohol. 

“No, just relaxing. It’s been a little tense on the show, it was nice to just chat. And she had the best answer I’ve ever heard.” 

“Look, I maintain a luxury hotel is not a bad place to set up shop,” Arthur says. “And, anyway, it’s better than a _fortress_ in some kind of Narnia of endless winter where Aslan never comes.” 

“Darling, it’s just so that I can look hot on skis because I can’t ski in real life so I’ll only ever look hot on them in a dream. It has nothing to do with Narnia.” 

“Are there Turkish delights in your fortress?” asks Arthur.

“If you continue to be difficult, yes, there will be lots of delightful Turkish men in my fortress.” 

“Ha ha,” says Arthur. 

The episode has reached judging day, and so there’s a pause to do judge interviews. Alec goes on and on and on at great length about the joys of mentoring, about giving back to young designers, about guiding the ducklings on their way or some such fucking nonsense. 

Eames says, “Should we have sex? I bet we’d be done by the time he shuts up.” 

Then Alec finally shuts up, and the screen fills with Arthur. Arthur also talks, at much shorter length, about the joys of mentoring, and then he talks about Eames, answering Mal’s off-screen questions. His face changes when he talks about Eames, his dimples more evident even when he’s not fully smiling. Arthur is always struck anew by those little things about himself. 

“I’m not going to make some kind of heartfelt speech about Eames in every single interview,” Arthur says onscreen. 

Eames tweets, _Arthur will only make heartfelt speeches about couches from now on. #arthur4everything #arthur4couch_

Eames is onscreen doing his interview now. “Arthur’s speech,” he says. “Yes, I know, it was extraordinary and lovely and breathtaking and I…I can’t really find the proper words to describe it. But it was a lot like he is to me. I can never find the proper words to describe Arthur. If you’re one of those people wondering about our relationship, I wish I could explain to you how incredibly lucky I am to have Arthur, but I don’t have the right adjectives. So whatever glorious things you would like to say about Arthur’s speech, just say them about Arthur instead, and then maybe you’d come close to how marvelous he is.” 

“Did it catch you by surprise?” asks Mal off-screen. 

“Not really. I know how he feels. I think he thinks he doesn’t say it enough, but he says it constantly. It’s in every look he gives me. Love doesn’t need declarations all the time. Sometimes it’s just someone staying home with you when you’re sick, or baking a cake for you when you’re feeling better, or laughing at your very stupid joke, or even asking if you’re okay or how your day went. Just…being with you. Just caring about what happens to you, about how you feel, about the things you dream of and the things that worry you and the things you can barely admit even to yourself. I loved his speech, passionately, of course I did, but I know Arthur and so no, it didn’t _surprise_ me. I am now fortunate enough to realize the wonder that he loves me. I have promised myself never to lose sight of that.” 

“How did you react when you heard his speech?” 

Eames flashes a grin at the camera. “Let’s say…orally.” 

“Anything you’d like to say in return?” 

“Oh, is this my turn to make a dramatically romantic speech? I won’t be able to match Arthur’s magnificence. But, darling.” Eames leans toward the camera, looking very serious. “I love you. You, remarkable person that you are, deserve all the best things in life. Thank you for settling for me.” 

The episode goes to commercial, and Arthur mutes it immediately. “ _Eames_ ,” he says. 

Eames looks steadily back at him from the other end of the couch, somber, intent, not a trace of amusement on his face.

Arthur swipes at the moisture in his eyes—when did _that_ happen?—and clambers to get himself on top of Eames. “Idiot,” he says, trying to sound harsh, “there isn’t anything better than you.” 

“And I love so much that you think that,” says Eames, and kisses him. 

Arthur tucks his head against Eames’s shoulder and tries to watch the rest of the episode but really he just wants to rewind Eames’s speech again. He can understand now why Eames kept rewinding Arthur’s speech. So Arthur tries to distract himself by glancing through Twitter. There are the usual exclamations of _THESE TWO I CAN’T TAKE THEM_. A couple of tweet say things like, _Let’s talk about Eames’s oral appreciation of the speech. #sexclubreference_ And a few tweets vociferously proclaim _There is no way he’s cheating on Arthur, that was the fakest, most manufactured scandal. #alecandeames #armes4eva_

Arthur clicks on the _#armes4eva_ hashtag, because he doesn’t know what that even means, and is surprised that it’s generally a lot of tweets about Arthur and Eames. 

“Eames, do you know what this means?” Arthur asks him. “‘Armes’? Is it French?” 

“It’s our couple name,” Eames says. He is apparently still watching the episode, because he adds, “Those dead sheep are creepy as fuck.” 

“Our couple name?” echoes Arthur. 

“Yeah, you know. _Ar_ thur and Ea _mes_ make Armes.” 

“And what is the purpose of that?” asks Arthur, appalled. 

“Easy reference for our fans. Apparently our names are hard, though. There’s no consensus. There’s a contingent that uses Eather, and a contingent that just calls us Househusbands.” 

“I am torn between being horrified that you know all this and being horrified that all this exists to even _know_.” 

“You know when you came out of Ariadne’s maze and you said it was fabulous?”

“What?” Arthur is thrown by the subject change. He glances up at the television, where he has indeed just emerged from Ariadne’s maze. 

“You should have said it was amazing. Get it? A- _maz_ -ing. Total missed opportunity there.” 

“Oh, God,” groans Arthur, and rewinds the episode. 

“What are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be social media promoting.” 

Arthur tweets quickly, _#TeamArthur4everything_. Then he says, “Done. Now I’m going to watch this approximately fifty thousand more times.” 

Eames kisses his shoulder. “You complained when I did that with your speech.” 

“I’ll do that shepherd roleplay for you again,” Arthur promises negligently. 

“I don’t think your heart is really in that role,” remarks Eames. 

“Baa baa,” Arthur says. “Baa. Now shut up so I can hear you say you love me.” 

“I love you,” says Eames into his ear, so that now Arthur can hear it in two places at the same time. 

Arthur snuggles harder against him and kisses his chest and says, “Baa,” again. 

Which makes Eames laugh and then there is nothing but the sound of their breathing and Eames, on television, saying he loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for tonight, and for those who were wondering, I am generally in the U.S. central time zone, except for when I'm on the East Coast.


	45. Chapter 45

Arthur is woken by his cell phone ringing. It is not an absurdly early hour but Eames is a late sleeper—Eames keeps terrible, uncoordinated hours, it’s a good thing he doesn’t work in an office—and Arthur has grown used to sleeping in out of deference to him, so the phone ringing is jarring to him. 

He reaches for it and lifts it up and looks at it blearily and it is blinking _Mal_ at him and his desire to answer it is in the negative. 

So he ignores it. 

Which means Eames’s phone starts ringing on his side of the bed. 

“Oh, my God,” Eames grumbles. “What is the emergency?” 

“It’s Mal,” Arthur says. 

“What makes Mal think we would ever answer a middle-of-the-night phone call from her?” 

“It’s not the middle of the night. It’s a reasonable morning hour for people who are not lazy like us.” 

“Still. She can text us like a civilized person.” Eames pulls his pillow over his head. 

Arthur’s phone starts ringing again. 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Eames from underneath his pillow. 

Arthur answers the phone on speaker. “Yeah?” 

“What are you two doing?” Mal demands. 

“Having sex,” calls Eames. “A great big orgy. You weren’t invited. Feel left out.” 

“What did he say? Where is he? He’s all muffled.” 

“What’s wrong, Mal?” Arthur asks. 

“You have made the hashtags a mess.” 

“The hashtags?” Arthur echoes, confused. 

“Yes. The things on Twitter that—”

“I know what hashtags are, but how have we made them a mess? We haven’t even been on Twitter.” 

“Yes, I’ve noticed. And you’re supposed to be campaigning! They still have twelve hours left to vote, you know! Alec has been sending lovely, perfect, team tweets regularly. Meanwhile you two cause a big disjointed mess and then disappear from the Internet!” 

“Stupid fucking Alec,” Arthur says, because it’s too early in the morning to hear his name. 

Eames has come out from underneath his pillow and shouts into Arthur’s phone, “Did you seriously ring us at this ungodly hour to talk about the _Internet_?” 

“Why are you shouting?” Arthur asks him in bewilderment. 

“So she can hear me,” Eames says. 

“She can hear you. She couldn’t before because you were under your pillow. There’s no need to yell like that.”

“I expect this from Eames,” Mal is saying, “Cobb warned me—but, Arthur, I expect you to keep Eames in line.” 

“Why does Cobb insist on pretending I can keep Eames in line?” demands Arthur. 

“Also, I resent that Cobb is telling people that I am anything less than a prince to work with,” contributes Eames. “I am a _prince_. Aren’t I a prince, darling?” 

“More like a viscount,” says Arthur. 

Eames’s eyes narrow. “Okay, we’ll talk about this later. The point is—”

“There are some hashtags ‘team Arthur’ and some hashtags ‘team Arthur for everything’ and some hashtags ‘team Arthur for Eames’ and some hashtags ‘team Arthur for _couch_ ,’” interrupts Mal. “And, Arthur, my lovely, perhaps you could remind me: What was your hashtag supposed to be?” 

Arthur feels a little bit chastised for this. It’s true that he already has been ignoring the request to campaign on Twitter. To make it worse, the one tweet he sent said _#teamArthur4everything_ , so he’s definitely contributed to the confusion. “Team Arthur,” he says. 

“Team Arthur,” says Mal. “Full stop. You’re right. At least you remember that. That is your hashtag. Team Arthur. You are not for anything.” 

“My hashtag is Team Eames,” Eames says. “See how I remembered that?” 

“Yes, and at least your hashtag seems to actually be working.” 

“Then don’t you think I should get credit for that? I feel like you should be asking me to keep Arthur in line.”

“Fine. Keep Arthur in line, Eames.” 

“Darling, stay in line,” says Eames. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Okay, Mal, if that’s it—”

“Is that _it_?” Mal practically shrieks at them. “No, that is not _it_. I haven’t even brought up the more serious problem: What is Team Armes?” She says it with a French lilt to her voice. “I would say people are talking about weapons, but that makes little sense in the context of the show and the tag seems to be all about _you_.” 

Eames says, “It’s our couple name. What do you think of it? I rather like it when I hear you say it.” 

“No,” says Mal, and that word has a French lilt to it, too. “You cannot have a joint team! The voting has to be—”

“Wait,” Arthur cuts in, because he’s had quite enough of this. “Hold on. The fact that there’s a couple name floating around for the two of us is entirely because of you. Because you’ve edited this show to be all about our relationship, mine and Eames’s, and, by the way, we didn’t ask for that, and now you’re all upset because people are seeing us as a joint team? You set it up that way. You made it us versus Alec, with nothing to do with the contestants, and you can’t herd that cat back into its bag. So don’t complain to us. I haven’t thrown any fits about the amount of my personal conversations that has appeared on the show because I’ve assumed we asked for it when we agreed to appear on reality TV. But I won’t let you exploit us on the one hand and on the other hand be upset that people are rooting for us. You got what you wanted, which is a show with a ton of buzz and a lot of viewers. And these viewers like me and like my relationship and I’m not apologizing for that or treating it as something to be fixed.” 

There is a moment of silence when Arthur stops talking. Arthur actually checks his phone to make sure the call is still active, because he’d expected some kind of response. 

Finally he says, “I’m sorry about the Team Arthur confusion, I’ll go on Twitter and clear that up. In the meantime, the voting isn’t tabulated through our team hashtags anyway, they have to hashtag with the name of their favorite contestant, so the harm to the show’s credibility is minimal. We’ll see you tomorrow for the challenge reading.” Arthur ends the call without waiting for her to respond and he’s in the process of putting his phone back on the nightstand when Eames tackles him to the bed and kisses him. 

“That was bloody brilliant,” he gasps. 

“Was it?” asks Arthur uncertainly. He hadn’t planned to go off like that. “It wasn’t too much?” 

“No, it was perfect and made a good point. That’s why you got no response. Darling, that was incredible. That almost makes up for the fact that Misty Rainbow’s dying sheep ruined my shepherd fantasy for me.” 

“Well, as long as I’ve almost made up for that tragedy, you know how heartbroken I was to discover that last night.” 

“Mmm,” says Eames. “I’m going to ravish you now.” 

“I’m supposed to tweet a Team Arthur correction.” 

“Twitter can wait. Team Armes would support us delaying our campaigning for the cause of really fabulous sex.” 

“Come here, Viscount Eames,” says Arthur, and wraps his legs around his waist. 

“‘Prince’ is such a better fantasy,” Eames tells him. 

“Yeah, but ‘viscount’ is more common in the fic,” says Arthur, and tries a little eyebrow waggle. 

Eames pulls back, staring down at him astonishment. And then he sits up entirely, dislodging Arthur’s legs. And then he abruptly picks up his pillow and starts whacking Arthur around the head with it. 

Arthur bursts into laughter, trying to dodge the blows. 

“You—cunning—sneaky—bastard,” Eames says between thrashes of the pillow. “You’ve been reading fanfiction secretly! Behind my back!” 

“Not really,” says Arthur around his laughter. He succeeds in catching the pillow and throwing it entirely off the bed. “I was really just going to read the shepherd one so I could see what you were on about and what was doing it for you, because I do know that my saying ‘baa’ at you was not what you wanted out of that.” 

“It was actually a little alarming to me that I suggested a shepherd roleplay and you went immediately into pretending to be a sheep.” 

“Because how do you pretend to be a shepherd, Eames? ‘Oh, gee, I have to go tend to my flock. I hope no little lamb wanders off today.’ That’s not hot.” 

“‘As I tend to my flock, let me sit here and stroke my enormous staff. Oh, my. Behold the size of my staff.’”

“ _Anyway_ ,” says Arthur, “I couldn’t find the shepherd one, but I found one where you’re a secret viscount and then I learned that that’s a _thing_ in the fic apparently and I really want to just tell everyone that your family lives in this sweet little cottage in this tiny English village and your dad runs the local pub and you have no tragic noble blood within you.” 

“Traitor,” says Eames. “I only use viscount to disguise my true identity as prince. And if you do not respect your prince’s wishes, then I shall have to keep you in my dungeon. My _sex_ dungeon.” 

“Oh, God,” says Arthur. 

“That’s a good one, have you read that one?” 

“I only read the one, you crazy, lunatic person.” 

“And here I thought you just came up with ‘viscount’ out of nowhere. It seemed like the sort of obscure title you would pluck up to use in conversation. How was I to know that it was in fact a secret fanfiction reference?” 

“It’s part of that sex code we talk in now.” 

“Tomorrow when Yusuf is within earshot I want you to purr at me—”

“I don’t purr at you—”

“Shh, darling, listen: I want you to purr at me, ‘Well, Viscount, what shall we do about that nasty Viscountess you have hidden in your tower?’”

Arthur snorts laughter. “‘I think I can persuade her to list it, let me work my magic.’”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Oh, suddenly our sex code makes sense?” 

“Stop being so bloody irresistible,” says Eames, “I can’t stand it.” And then he kisses him.


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get farther in this chapter and didn't, so here is a chapter where nothing much happens, sorry!

Arthur has actual clients that he’s supposed to be finding houses for. To him, that is still his career and much more deserving of his attention than this Twitter nonsense. But he feels a duty to Gon, so in between updating his spreadsheet, he spends some time on Twitter. Mostly he composes tweets praising particular aspects of Gon’s design and reminding everyone of the proper spelling of Gon’s name. He worries about Gon losing votes because of improperly spelled tags. He wishes he could call Mal to confirm that they’re accounting for that sort of thing but he doesn’t think it the best idea to get in touch with Mal after he hung up on her that morning. 

He also tries to give support to Trizz and Misty Rainbow but he’s not sure he’s as convincing as he is in his support of Gon. 

He steadfastly doesn’t look at what Alec’s tweeting, because he doesn’t want it to ruin his day. 

He does glance at what Eames is tweeting through the day, and Eames’s tweets develop the most ridiculous hashtags. _#teameamemememememes_ and _#teameamesseemsdreams_ and _#teaminsertrhymehere_. Mal is probably going crazy with irritation. 

Eames tosses his hat in for Arthur’s team, too, giving Gon some praise and tagging it as _#teamdarling_. And he does also throw in some support for the poor girl with the coffins because she was a good sport about being on Alec’s team and has some spark to her. Eames praises her imaginative approach to closets. He tags it _#teamfedora_. 

Arthur tweets on the coffin girl’s behalf, too, tagging it _#teamalec_ , and then he adds a tweet for Ariadne, because he would be remiss not to, he thinks. _Remember that Ariadne built an entire closet maze. Clever Greek mythology references deserve votes! #teameames #itisabitdrseuss_

Eames shows up in Arthur’s office as twilight is approaching. 

“Have you given thought to dinner?” he asks, and sprawls himself on Arthur’s couch. 

Arthur regards him in amusement. “Have you done any work today?”

“I have designers’ block,” says Eames, not sounding very distressed about it. 

“I think you have Twitteritis,” replies Arthur. “Mal is going to kill you for your insane hashtags.” 

“My hashtags are genius. The entire Internet agrees.” 

“Thank you for saying nice things about Gon,” says Arthur. 

“His design was gorgeous. And you did an excellent job mentoring him. All of your advice was spot-on and insightful and lovely. You are much better at design than you give yourself credit for. And much better with people, too.”

Arthur ignores the fact that he’s blushing and says, “I just try to be like you.” 

“You don’t say nearly enough filthy things to be me.” 

“Don’t do nearly enough leering, either.” 

“Plus your accent isn’t nearly as melodious.” 

“True. Your accent _is_ the only thing you have going for you, you know.” 

“I know. I must keep it in proper shape. I do exercises every morning. ‘Aluminium,’ I say, and ‘speciality,’ and ‘laboratory.’ I watch myself in the mirror.”

“Any excuse to watch yourself in the mirror.” 

“If you looked like me, would you deny yourself any opportunity to watch yourself in the mirror?” 

“As I consider it a great bonus of dating you that I get to ogle you at length, I can’t argue with you. What are your dinner thoughts? Which takeout menu do you want to raid?” 

“I thought we’d change things up a bit and go out.” 

Arthur brightens. He loves dining out but they’re lazy about doing it. “Out?” 

“I knew you’d like that idea. Your choice, darling. It’ll take your mind off Twitter.” 

***

Arthur picks an Italian place near their house where they’re regulars. He chooses a bottle of wine and waits until they have the first glasses poured before he says, “Do you think Mal is really upset?” 

“I think Mal spent the day working out her anger through really enthusiastic sex with Cobb,” says Eames, sipping his wine. 

Arthur winces. “Stop it.” 

“You think she speaks French in bed?” 

“Eames, you’re going to ruin my appetite.” 

“Fine, I’ll stop. If you’re really worrying about Mal, don’t. You were right in what you said. You’re fairly easy to get along with, you know. I know that you think that you’re this incredibly difficult tyrant but the truth is that you’re quite reasonable. You do your job, very admirably, making much less trouble than I do, and generally people respect and adore you, and it’s even more charming that you don’t seem to notice that. Mal thinks the world of you, she thinks you’re funny and clever and can be trusted to keep the show sharp. She isn’t going to want to cross you. And you were right to warn her that she crossed you in this instance.” 

Arthur looks at him for a long moment, then says, “Well. Most of that speech I don’t agree with but I guess I’ll take your word for it.” 

Eames flickers a smile at him and then leans closer. “Let’s do something incredibly radical.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at him. “If this is about removing all of our clothing so that we can attempt to inspire a nudist trend, no, for the millionth time, we’re not going to do that.” 

“And, for the millionth time, I continue to believe that your obsession with clothing is an international tragedy. But that wasn’t what I was going to suggest. Let’s have an entire evening where we don’t talk about the next big thing.” Eames pauses. “Unless by the next big thing you are referring to, you know, my penis later on tonight.” 

“How could anyone ever resist a line like that?” 

“Only a madman would,” agrees Eames solemnly. 

Arthur smiles at him. “Okay. No reality television talk. No Internet talk. No fanfiction talk.” 

“Agreed,” says Eames, and clinks his wineglass against Arthur’s. “Tell me about your most recent clients.” 

“They want open-concept that feels cozy, everything brand new and also old, and a very large yard but not too far away from other houses.” 

“A perfect job for my miracle-working boyfriend,” says Eames. 

Arthur smiles and says, “Tell me about what’s happening on _EastEnders_ since we last caught up on it.”

And Eames launches enthusiastically into a rundown of _EastEnders_ that results in him playing all of the parts and Arthur crying with laughter into his ravioli.


	47. Chapter 47

Arthur wakes before Eames in the morning. That’s not unusual, because usually he goes to bed before Eames. But Eames is a haphazard sleeper and Arthur sometimes wakes to find himself alone in the bed because Eames was seized by inspiration in the middle of the night and got up to pull an entire room together. On those days Arthur made Eames tea and brought it into the living room and Eames acknowledged him absently. 

On most days, though, it happens exactly like this morning: Arthur awakes. Eames is sprawled on more than his share of the bed, normally snoring a little bit. Arthur very, very carefully selects an outfit for the day. Arthur showers and shaves and dresses and fixes his hair. Eames is still snoring away. They have a while before they need to be at the studio for filming, so Arthur lets him sleep and wanders into the kitchen. He makes himself coffee and a bowl of cereal and sits at the breakfast bar reading the New York _Times_. 

Eventually Eames wanders in, yawning and tousling at his bed-mussed hair. He drops into the seat next to Arthur and puts his head on his shoulder and says, “Challenge day?” 

“Mm-hmm.” Arthur kisses his head. “Good morning.” 

“Have you checked Twitter?”

“What good would it do me? Voting closed last night so it’s not like I can campaign anymore.” 

“You sound nervous.” 

“I’m invested in Gon. I liked his design. I want him to win.” Arthur pauses. “Him or Ariadne. If Misty Rainbow wins, I despair of the Internet.” 

“How can you despair of the Internet when the Internet has given us hot shepherd sex?” 

“I’d despair of the Internet if it gave us hot shepherd sex and a victory for a designer who paints sheep with bleeding eyes.” 

“In that case, the Internet would have an odd fixation with sheep. Maybe the Internet will vote for the vale of tears entry,” suggests Eames. 

“Too depressing,” says Arthur. “Get dressed. I don’t want us to be late the day after I told Mal off.” 

Eames noses his way behind Arthur’s ear. “Can I convince you to take a shower with me?” 

“No, you cannot,” says Arthur primly. “I just took a shower and got dressed and I am ready to face the day. Look at how nice my hair looks. Look at my beautiful tie.” 

“I have indeed looked at all of that. It’s why I want to completely dishevel you,” Eames mumbles into the back of his neck, now kissing along his hairline. 

Arthur glances at his watch. “No time.” 

Eames pulls back and says, indignant, “Did you just look at your watch?” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows. “What?” 

“I am trying to seduce you, and you just _looked_ at your _watch_?” 

“Yes?” offers Arthur. “Eames, we’re on a—”

He doesn’t get to say the rest because Eames grabs him and kisses him, swallowing the rest of the sentence. Eames kisses him until Arthur is kissing back, until Arthur is actually scrambling to find enough space for himself on Eames’s lap with the breakfast bar right at his back the way it is. 

“You’re too fucking good a kisser,” Arthur mumbles accusingly into Eames’s mouth. 

Eames chuckles into the kiss and then pulls back. “You know,” he says seriously, “I think we’re on a schedule—”

“Fuck you,” Arthur says, and takes Eames’s shirt off him. 

***

Mal is waiting for them when they arrive, and she gives Arthur a look and says flatly, “I need to talk to you.” 

Arthur feels only a flicker of surprise. He’d been expecting this. 

“Mal,” complains Eames, “the hashtags—”

“You can go to makeup,” Mal says sharply. 

Eames draws his eyebrows together, thrown out of his usual genial, droll default. 

Arthur is similarly startled. He’d expected Mal to be miffed but this seems out of proportion. It was stupid Twitter hashtags and it was a private conversation, it’s not like he told her off in front of the crew or something. Arthur waves Eames away and follows Mal into a small room he’s never been in before. From the paper-strewn desk, he’s guessing it’s her office. 

“Look,” Arthur says, “I know I was harsh about the Twitter thing, but I’m right, you can’t—”

“Never mind that,” says Mal, waving her hand around. 

Arthur doesn’t know what to make of this. Why else could he have been summoned to Mal’s office like a fucking high schooler? “We’re not that late, Mal—”

“Do you know Ariadne?” 

Arthur holds himself very still, monitoring every single outward reaction he could be exposing. “Do I know her?” 

“Yes.” 

Arthur says carefully, “Of course I know her.”

“Did you know her before the show started?” demands Mal impatiently. “I mean, we looked out for that and we asked for disclosures and if you—”

“I didn’t know her before the show started shooting,” says Arthur honestly, relieved that’s the question, and hoping that’s the end of it. 

“Because these are serious allegations, Arthur.” Mal looks very serious indeed. Apparently that is not the end of it. 

“I didn’t know her,” Arthur reiterates. “What allegations?” 

“The ones Alec raised. That Ariadne seems to know you very well. Suspiciously well.” 

Arthur sets his jaw. “Alec came to you and raised ‘allegations’ about Ariadne and me? What are his allegations? I suppose he thinks I make pornos with her in my sex club?” 

“He has valid allegations, Arthur. I thought you two seemed close during the judgings, but I also thought maybe you were playing it up for the camera. You’re very clever at knowing what sells, after all. But Alec’s right that Ariadne’s conversation with Eames seems to imply that she knows you well enough to be worrying about you. How did she get to know you so well from a couple of judgings?” 

“If Alec had a problem with this, he should have come to me—”

“He raised it on Twitter, Arthur! Didn’t you see it?” 

Arthur hadn’t really been on Twitter much. And, even if he had been, Arthur makes a habit not to check Alec’s Twitter. Because of fuckery like this. He says evenly and calmly, “Ariadne and I don’t know each other. I like her designs. Perhaps you may have noticed that the relationship that can develop between a designer and a person who likes their designs can be intense. Perhaps you may have noticed that I fell in love with my boyfriend through his designs. I have a tendency to access people emotionally through their designs, and I guess it makes me more open with myself and leads to a sense of intimacy between us. I don’t know. Get a psychologist to explain it. Ariadne and I clicked on a design level and so yes, we seem close, because we clearly get each other. Like love at first sight, only not that sort of love.” 

Mal looks at him for a long moment, eyes flickering over his face. Arthur stays calm and composed because Arthur has one hell of a poker face when he needs it. He may be the current reigning king of reaction gifs but he knows how to lie with the best of them if he has to. 

“So you and Ariadne haven’t been fraternizing?” asks Mal. 

And Arthur says easily, “No.”


	48. Chapter 48

“Everything okay?” Eames asks him, when Arthur arrives at makeup. 

“Fine,” says Arthur lightly. 

Which he can tell doesn’t fool Eames for a second, but Eames doesn’t press it because Eames is smart. Eames says, “Good. Julia was just telling me how she had these fabulously fun viewing parties.” 

“You should come,” Julia says. “We play drinking games. We drink every time Eames calls you ‘darling.’”

“You drink a lot, then,” remarks Arthur, automatically keeping up his end of the conversation as he pulls his phone out and scrolls to Alec’s Twitter. 

“Isn’t that the point of a drinking game? We do a shot every time Alec touches someone else.” 

“Fuck,” says Arthur. “I’d never survive that kind of drinking game.” He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls. Alec’s Twitter is full of fucking nonsense. He spends a lot of time being touched _here_. Frankly, it sounds pornographic and really Mal should be lecturing Alec on Twitter etiquette instead of having a fit over a fucking unimportant hashtag being slightly wrong. 

Arthur scrolls through a bunch of Alec tweets praising the vale of tears design and the prison design. _We should all be more cognizant of the prisons we erect around ourselves. #votesunny #teamalec_ and _What is life but a vale of tears? What better way to connect ourselves to our humanity every morning as we dress? #votejevin #teamalec_ All along those lines. Alec never threw any words of support Arthur or Eames’s teams’ way. This is why Arthur avoided looking at Alec’s Twitter. He knew it was only going to upset him. He frowns in displeasure and scrolls and scrolls. 

Julia whistles at him. “Your turn, sweet-ass.” 

“What is that?” Arthur says. “That’s sexual harassment.” 

“It was that or Seamus,” says Julia unapologetically. 

“Seamus?” 

“Seems like a good name for a leprechaun.” 

“For Christ’s sake,” sighs Arthur, and hands his phone to Eames as he sits in the makeup chair. “Can you scroll through that for me?” 

“Sure,” Eames says in confusion, glancing down at it, eyebrows raising when he sees what it is. He sits in the couch in the room and says, “Pot of Gold.” 

“What?” asks Julia. 

“For his leprechaun name—Oh. Oh, I see…Oh.” 

“What’s up?” Julia glances over at Eames curiously. “Why are two so attached to that phone this morning?” 

“Sebastian Stan sent Arthur a message,” says Eames.

Julia squeaks with excitement. “Did he? About the sex club?” 

“There’s no sex club,” says Arthur futilely. 

“Can you get Sebastian Stan to come to my viewing parties? Everyone would be super-impressed if I knew somebody seriously hot like Sebastian Stan.” 

“Cheers, Julia,” says Eames drily. 

Just to improve Arthur’s day, Alec walks in. “Hello, hello,” he says, beaming from underneath his fedora. “Hello, Julia, don’t you look like a ray of sunshine this morning?” 

“Hi, Alec,” says Julia, not sounding much like a ray of sunshine. 

“ _Very_ successful episode, wouldn’t you agree?” says Alec to the room at large. “I thought it was such fun to be able to engage with my fans so directly. They all had such thought-provoking questions about the rooms and the design inspirations and the contestants. Of course, I didn’t have much to say about the contestants; I haven’t spent much time with them aside from the three on my team and that was just this week. Such a shame, we don’t get to spend more time with them. I really envy your ability, Arthur, to develop a rapport with strangers so quickly.” 

“You learn to do that when you engage in a lot of orgies,” says Arthur. 

Alec smiles at him and says, “I can just imagine.” 

Arthur thinks it’s a good thing he gave in to sex with Eames that morning because it’s the only thing that’s gone right this entire fucking day.


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to pureimaginatrix for helping me crystallize what Mal's thinking here, and to REReader for pointing out the solution to Arthur and Ariadne's problem. I had actually wanted something to happen and was trying to get us there and REReader's comment suddenly allows my desired situation to make actual sense! (It's always nice when that happens!)

They are setting up Alec’s lighting. Eames corners Arthur, crowding him up against a wall and then right into his space. Anybody glancing over would assume, Arthur supposes, that they were just passionately making out. Which would be gross of them, but whatever, it’s a convenient way to allow themselves to have as private a conversation as they can manage. Going outside to talk things over would look too suspicious; Arthur can feel Mal watching him like a hawk. 

“What did you say?” Eames murmurs into Arthur’s ear, and kisses his earlobe. 

“I lied. Said I hadn’t fraternized with her. What else was I going to do? I didn’t have time to sort through every scenario and lying seemed the easiest. Should I have told the truth? That I’ve been knowingly breaking the rule all this time?” Arthur breathes his answer into Eames’s ear. 

“No, I think you’re right. We just have to hope that Ariadne lies, too.” 

“This is so stupid,” Arthur complains. “Why can’t Alec shut the fuck up? I mean, I get that he hates me, fine, I’d hate anyone you’d date after me, but why bring Ariadne into this? Do you think all this controversy will hurt Ariadne’s chances in this challenge?” 

“No,” Eames says. 

“Do you think it will hurt her in the long run? Do you think Mal would kick her off?” 

“No,” Eames says after a moment. “It’s not in Mal’s best interest to kick off Ariadne. She needs to make it look like she’s looking into this but Ariadne is one of the best designers in the show, she can’t go this early. Plus, the fans love your onscreen relationship with her. Mal knows that. Mal’s not going to jeopardize her cash cow. No, the more I think about it, the more I think Mal had to do something to shut Alec up and make sure the network knows she’s guarding the show’s credibility, but I think she’s going to forget about it now. She’s gone through the motions. She might not even question Ariadne, saying that she took your word for it and didn’t want the scandal to affect the contestants.” 

Arthur leans back from Eames so he can see his face. “You think?” 

“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” 

“I’m hoping it’s not just wishful thinking saying that. I wish I could talk to Ariadne and make sure we’re on the same page.” 

“Well, the good news is that I think we can make a good argument to do away with the fraternizing rule. We were encouraged to fraternize with them last time around. That’s the only reason this has even come up, because I got on too well with one of the contestants that I was encouraged to hang out with. If we aren’t encouraged to fraternize with all of them now, we might be inclined to play favorites and vote for our team.”

“Good point. So let’s just get rid of the stupid rule.” 

“Exactly.” 

“Boys!” Mal shouts. “Stop being in love and come over here so we can get started!” 

Arthur nods quickly. “We’ll raise it after the challenge reading.” 

Eames brushes a quick kiss over Arthur’s lips and squeezes his hand reassuringly before straightening. “This is fine,” he whispers. “You haven’t done anything to hurt Ariadne. She’s a brilliant designer who will do quite well no matter what happens, anyway, especially with our endorsement.” He winks, then he raises his voice to proclaim grandly, “We will never stop being in love, Mal.”

Arthur rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything because he’d rather everyone think they were engaging in a disgusting amount of PDA than that they were plotting how to cover up Arthur’s lies about his ongoing breakage of the one rule of the show. 

“All lit properly?” Eames asks Alec brightly. 

Alec just gives him a look. Without budging his head an inch. 

“Today’s challenge reveal will be a little different because we have to start with the results of the Internet voting,” Mal explains. “Who wants to be in charge of reading the elimination?”

“I will,” Alec says instantly. 

Mal hands him the envelope. “And who wants to read the victor?” 

“I’ll read the victor,” says Eames, and Arthur agrees with that. He doesn’t want the awkward interaction if Ariadne is the victor. 

“That leaves you to read the challenge, Arthur,” Mal says, and hands him an envelope. “And here we go.” 

The contestants are more subdued than they usually are during a challenge reveal. Arthur doesn’t blame them, since one of them is about to be eliminated. Not knowing who is actually incredibly nerve-wracking. Having no decision-making power is hell; he doesn’t know how the contestants are coping with this on a regular basis. 

Eames reads the victor first. He ad-libs a speech congratulating all of them on some very innovative designs and then he reveals that the public has voted and the winner is…Gon.

Arthur is pleased enough to smile full-on, which he knows is something he doesn’t do very often without Eames to coax him into it. But he thinks he can take some of the credit for having helped Gon to victory, and that’s gratifying. 

Gon actually gives him a hug, which embarrasses Arthur and he can feel his cheeks turn pink but, whatever, Gon is clearly delighted by his win so it’s all good. 

Now it’s time for the elimination reveal. Of course Alec launches into a long speech. Arthur can barely follow it, it’s so rambling. It starts off by saying something about the place of closets in our society, and how they weren’t found in older houses, and are a relatively modern invention, and therefore they are a room that a modern person’s soul recognizes in a way no others of our human brethren throughout history would ever have done. 

Arthur tunes out after that. He picks out Ariadne in the crowd of contestants and spends a little time worrying over whether Alec’s rumor about the two of them hurt her in the voting. Surely someone would have tweeted directly at him to request clarification if it was really something serious. Arthur feels an odd sense of trust in most of his fans, that they would have given him a heads-up, even though he has no idea who these people are. 

Arthur pays attention to Alec again for a little while. Alec appears to be talking about the Bubonic Plague. Arthur doesn’t even want to know. The contestants look vaguely horrified and mostly ill at how long this has been going on. 

Eventually Eames says, “Whilst this description of line dancing customs is fascinating and I fervently hope you can finish it another time, I do feel for the contestants who have been on tenterhooks regarding their fate for a while now.” 

Alec laughs lightly. “Of course! Silly me! Would you like to hear who has been eliminated?” 

Eight contestants glare at Alec. Gon is busy grinning from ear to ear. 

Alec opens the envelope and reads its contents silently. Then he replaces the piece of paper in the envelope in as long and drawn-out a manner as possible. Then he positions his hand over his heart and says mournfully, “My heart goes out to this contestant. I feel this loss _here_.” He takes a deep breath and exhales, “Maria.” 

There is a shocked moment of silence. 

“ _Mah_ reea,” corrects Eames softly. 

Alec doesn’t correct himself. 

Finally Maria bursts into tears and the other contestants crowd around her to comfort her and Arthur is relieved for Ariadne but still feels terrible.

“Oh, no,” says Eames, sounding stricken. “She wasn’t the most amazing designer but she was a nice girl.” 

“I didn’t see that coming,” says Arthur, feeling dazed. He had thought Maria would float along in the middle of the pack for a little while longer, attracting little notice. 

“A lesson to learn from the Internet,” replies Eames. “Don’t be boring. The Internet would literally rather vote for a vale of tears and sheep with bleeding eyes than vote for something dull.” 

“It is a good lesson,” comments Alec blandly. “You’ve got to keep the Internet all riled up about something.”

Arthur says drily, “Yeah, so I’ve noticed.” 

Alec gives him an innocent look. 

“You’ve moved your head,” Eames points out. 

“Oh, damn,” says Alec, and calls to be re-lit.


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to penguinandthewolf for the suggestion for this episode's challenge!

It’s a little while before Maria is calmed and then escorted away. The contestants left in her wake are happy to be there but also understandably subdued. And Arthur assumes that they, like him, are sick of today already. 

So Arthur just does his usual ripping open of the envelope and reads, “Design a secret hideaway room. The purpose or type of secret room that you design is entirely your choice.” He replaces the paper in the envelope and says, “Good luck.”

“We’re going to get eight sex dungeons and one excellent library,” predicts Eames, sounding vaguely amused, as the contestants file out of the room. 

“Well,” says Alec, “I’ll see you guys—”

“Not so fast,” Arthur says, fixing him with a hard glare. “Stay here, we have things to discuss.” 

“What things?” asks Alec. Arthur thinks it’s amazing how Alec can genuinely make it seem as if he has no clue what anyone is ever talking about when his behavior is the reason for eighty percent of the conversations that Arthur has these days. 

So Arthur just gives him an even harder glare. 

Alec makes a stupid exaggerating gasping sound and Arthur wonders why every fucking thing Alec does looks like it was a gesture designed for the stage. Alec flutters his hand toward his throat as if to pose in the position of _“Shock (As Seen By Me Once in an Over-Dramatic Old Painting in a Museum).”_ “Is this about you and Ariadne? Oh, Arthur, I was so worried that there might be something untoward going on there. You understand that I simply had to say something, for the integrity of—”

“Of our highly edited reality television show in which people are voting for fucking _dead sheep murals_?” drawls Arthur sarcastically. “Yes. Thank God you are looking out for integrity. I do tend to think of you as the beacon of integrity, what with your sex dungeon tweets and all.” 

“Hey,” Alec says sharply. “You told me—”

“Mal,” Eames interjects, calling across to her. “Could we have a moment?” 

Mal marches over to them, looking displeased. “Haven’t we had enough petty squabbles between you three for the day?” 

Alec manages to look comically offended. _“Indignation (As Seen By Me Once in an Over-Dramatic Old Painting in a Museum),”_ thinks Arthur. “Improprieties between a judge and a contestant?” he sputters. “That is not ‘petty squabbling.’”

“It’s a reality show,” Eames says, “not a presidential election. And I’ve seen the way you lot conduct your elections. Frankly, there’s far less impropriety going on on this show. Anyway, this no-fraternizing rule is the heart of the problem.”

“The problem?” echoes Alec. “How is it a problem to try to preserve the objectivity of judges for the sake of fairness toward all contestants?” 

“But now we’ve fraternized with contestants,” Eames points out calmly, and Arthur’s glad he’s taking the lead because Arthur feels much less calm. Which is probably exactly why Eames is taking the lead. “All of this started because the show said we ought to fraternize with the contestants, and some idiots on Twitter got it in their heads that Ariadne and I got along well enough that she must be BFFs with Arthur, or whatever.” 

“That’s not—” Alec begins hotly. 

Eames talks right over him. “Now we all have favorite contestants, because we’ve only fraternized with three contestants each. What this show needs to fix its objectivity problem is more fraternizing, not less.” 

Alec looks about to object, but then abruptly swallows his words. He gives Eames a curious look. 

Arthur has a very bad feeling. They’ve misstepped here, and he’s not sure how. 

Mal says, “Eames has a very good point, Alec. The no fraternizing rule is clearly now _passe_.” 

“No, you’re right,” Alec agrees amiably, and the sudden change in tactic could provoke whiplash. “I completely agree. We should all spend more time getting to know all of the contestants. I was only concerned when it was being done secretly and compromising the entire premise of the show.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes but decides it’s not worth the effort of protesting. 

Mal looks as suspicious as Arthur feels. She says, “We are all agreed now?” 

Alec, looking angelic, nods his head. 

Eames says, skeptical gaze fixed on Alec, “I don’t know what the fuck we are.” 

“I need a drink,” says Mal, and marches away.

Alec beams at Arthur. “No hard feelings?” 

He doesn’t wait for Arthur to respond. Which is just as well because Arthur definitely has hard feelings. 

“Good talk,” Alec says, and seems about to reach for Arthur before wisely thinking better of it and simply resting his hand upon his heart instead. “I’m pleased we came to this understanding.” 

_What fucking understanding?_ thinks Arthur. Arthur almost wants to tell him to stay and spill whatever incredibly annoying plan he’s hatching now, but Arthur also knows that Alec will just put on his fucking fake innocent look and if Arthur has to be subjected to that look right now he might punch it so it’s better that they just let Alec leave. 

“What do you think he’s up to?” asks Eames casually. 

“Something that will make me want to fucking shoot him,” answers Arthur flatly.


	51. Chapter 51

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to alltoseek for the Misty Rainbow / Alec ship idea and the #getaleclaid hashtag, and thank you to Ocelot_Summer for the Mistec ship name. 
> 
> Thank you to involuntaryorange for literally making medieval tapestry memes for the show, and they are spectacular: http://involuntaryorange.tumblr.com/post/112580314365/earlgreytea68-involuntaryorange-surely-the

Eames has a client in crisis, panicking over couch styles and paint colors. Arthur has clients who panic over that stuff, too, but Arthur basically doesn’t engage with lunacy like that. He waits for it to play itself out and then he just proceeds as if no such crazy panic ever happened. 

Eames, of course, croons comforting words into his client’s ear, figuratively holding her hand and doing Lamaze with her or something. Arthur retreats to the bedroom because he’s found that’s the best way to get Eames to finish up quickly. Arthur used to go to his office and then eventually at 3 a.m. he would find Eames sprawled on the rug in the living room, still on the phone, saying, “I’m sure your mother didn’t mean to behave as if she preferred your sister to you.” If Arthur went into the bedroom, however, Eames’s Pavlovian reflexes would kick in and he would entertain thoughts of sex and he would hurry his client off the phone. 

So Arthur goes to bed. Normally he takes a book with him but tonight he takes his laptop, because he apparently has a lot of Internet to catch up on. 

The damning tweets about Ariadne are actually replies to one of Alec’s fans. Or Arthur assumes it’s a fan. Arthur hasn’t given it a lot of thought, but presumably Alec has fans. People must like him, he supposes. Hell, even Eames liked him enough to fuck him a few times. 

Of course, though, because Alec is obnoxious, he prefaced the reply with a period to make sure it would be visible to everyone who looked at his Twitter. 

_.@dearhart143 You make a good point. Ariadne does sound as if she knows Arthur very well._

_.@dearhart143 I’m sure that there hasn’t been any cheating going on. It’s probably just a coincidence that Arthur is such an enthusiastic fan of Ariadne’s designs._

“Fuck you,” Arthur says out loud to Alec’s Twitter on his laptop, because it’s satisfying to say and he didn’t get to punch Alec in the face today so he should at least get to do something to relieve all of today’s pent-up stress. 

Especially since his boyfriend is busy being professional and responsible and _adult_ for a change. 

Arthur stares up at the ceiling feeling morose about Eames’s attack of responsible adulthood. 

Then Arthur rolls out of bed and goes to the living room, where Eames is practically underneath the coffee table. Why Eames can’t sit on furniture like a normal person when he’s on these long therapy phone calls with his clients, Arthur doesn’t know. Arthur also doesn’t know why he’s ever on these long therapy phone calls with his clients. Since he’s not actually their therapist. 

Arthur nudges his toe up against Eames’s leg, and Eames shifts his head out from underneath the coffee table so he can see him, simultaneously saying into his phone, “I know what Buzzfeed said about people who buy chesterfield sofas but I don’t think it applies to you.” 

Arthur says, “Come and relieve my pent-up stress from having to deal with your ex-boyfriend today.” 

Eames nods eagerly and mouths, _Two minutes_ , then says, “Okay, but I don’t actually think that Freud had much to say on that subject—Oh, you’ve got quotes to read to me. Oh, fantastic.” 

Arthur frowns and goes back to their bedroom and takes off the boxers and t-shirt he had been wearing and texts Eames, _Just fyi, I’m naked in here_. Eames, he knows, will read the text, even if he won’t be able to text back. 

Bored, Arthur goes back to the Internet. He figures out that there’s a positive Ariadne hashtag-- _#ariadneftw_ \--and he reads a few of the tweets to make himself feel better. 

_This is Alec just causing trouble like the idiot he is. He’s just mad Ariadne’s designs are usually the best. #ariadneftw_

_Even if Arthur and Ariadne are making out as soon as the camera’s off (they’re not, have you seen him with Eames?), who cares? No one thinks Ariadne should have been eliminated ever. #ariadneftw #armes4everything_

_Ariadne’s won one challenge and it was the blind voting challenge. What is Alec even trying to say is going on here? #ariadneftw #alec4gettingaclue_

_What difference does it even make? This week’s voting is by the public anyway, so Arthur has nothing to do with it. #ariadneftw #armes4everything_

_So what if Arthur’s rigging the show? I’m for Arthur rigging everything he wants. Including parts of my body, in case my meaning wasn’t clear. #ariadneftw #arthur4everything #andimeaneverything_

_I get it’s hard to be the jilted ex-lover, but really, Alec? Really? #ariadneftw #sorryalec_

_This is a tweet for Alec Hart: I, too, am upset I don’t get to have sex with Eames. But I’m classy about it. #ariadneftw_

_Arthur isn’t the one letting petty personal issues cloud this entire show. #arthur4everything #ariadneftw #shutupalec_

_Is this going to be an issue? I feel like the show should be worrying about the clearly mentally disturbed contestants, not Ariadne. She’s the only normal one! #ariadneftw_

_Can we start shipping Alec with Misty Rainbow? I think she could balance his bad humours, or whatever. #ariadneftw #getaleclaid_

_Doesn’t Arthur have a sex club??? Arthur, distract Alec with some hot piece of flesh. #ariadneftw #getaleclaid_

_I heard a rumor Sebastian Stan got in touch with Arthur. Anybody else hear that? #ariadneftw #butiamstillfocusedonthesexclub #eyesontheprize_

Arthur never thought he’s think this but he’s relieved to find Twitter more focused on the sex club than on Alec’s attempt to manufacture an Ariadne scandal. Arthur would much rather them focus on that ridiculousness. 

Of course, on Alec’s side of the aisle, things are not so positive. Most people seem convinced Arthur is sleeping with every single contestant on the show as well as Eames and the reason he and Alec don’t get along is because Alec was the only person with enough taste to rebuff Arthur. But what can you expect from someone who presides over several orgies nightly? 

Arthur rolls his eyes and generally feels better about the Ariadne thing. It’s not gaining much traction. Mal won’t give any credence to Twitter’s speculation, given how outrageous the rumors are getting (Arthur, one of them says, has actually been castrated and uses the orgies as an elaborate means to disguise this fact, although Arthur has no idea how that would work). Arthur really feels like this whole thing is going to blow over as a non-issue. And if Alec tries to keep making it an issue, Arthur has the lifting of the no-fraternization rule on his side. Yes, he and Ariadne fraternized before the rule was lifted but he doesn’t think that’s going to come out unless Mal keeps investigating, and Eames is right, Arthur thinks, that Mal won’t see any need to now. 

Arthur pokes his head out of the bedroom and listens. He can hear Eames’s voice saying, “Yes, there is something called yellow fever, but that doesn’t have any connection to your wall color.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes and goes back to bed and thinks how it’s now clear to him how Eames could sleep with Alec: Eames is way too used to being accepting of crazy behavior. 

Arthur texts Eames, _Have started reading fanfiction about us. It’s really hot. Too bad you’re missing it._

Then he pokes around the rest of the Internet. There a few pictures of him and Eames at dinner the night before. They’re actually nice pictures, with the two of them looking relaxed and happy with each other, but Arthur isn’t sure where they came from, can’t remember anyone around them having a camera pointed at them at any point. He supposes this is his introduction to the level of fame they’ve stepped up to: people will snap their pictures covertly at their neighborhood restaurants. 

Arthur leaves behind the pictures to venture into the world of memes. There is one going around involving fake medieval tapestries illustrating scenes from _Next Big Thing_. Arthur spends so much time laughing over them that he finally feels compelled to tweet out a link to them, thanking whoever made them for their brilliance. 

Arthur eventually sighs and texts Eames, _You’d better not be out there having phone sex_. Then he Googles “Having Eames on Eames,” because why the fuck not? 

He’s halfway through reading it when Eames finally comes rushing breathlessly into the bedroom. 

“Am I too late?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Arthur deadpans, not looking up from his laptop. “It’s tragic for you. I am leaving you for LuvEamesiesTattoos, because, frankly, this person has given me more sexual pleasure than you have tonight.” 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Eames says, tossing clothes off his body haphazardly. 

“Why are you such a nice person who’s so kind to your clients?” Arthur complains. “It’s fucking annoying. I’m going to write a piece of fanfiction about us and it’s going to be all about me trying to seduce you and then having to give up and go and read other people’s fanfiction instead because you’re too busy talking about couch styles and Freud, what the fuck.” 

“I know, I know, I know,” says Eames, crawling into bed and suddenly pausing, staring at Arthur’s laptop. “Wait, you really are reading fanfiction. I thought you were teasing me.” 

“I am reading fanfiction. And I have an idea for what you can do with your hands. But first we need an Eames lounge.” 

“I’ll show you what I can do with my hands,” says Eames, pushing Arthur’s laptop aside. “No Eames lounge required.” 

“You are awfully confident for a man who has been ignoring me all night,” says Arthur. 

“Let me make it up to you,” suggests Eames. 

“Talk to me about couches,” Arthur says. “It’s so hot.” 

“Not Freud.” 

“Using Freud in bed is too spot-on. Freud wouldn’t approve. There needs to be a level of very obvious symbolism between sex and Freud.” 

“Also, I don’t normally like to let nineteenth-century psychoanalysts into my bed.” 

“He died in the twentieth century, you know.” 

“He’d still make this bed very crowded and then he’d analyze my erection until it went away.” 

“Would thinking about couches help with that erection?” 

Eames grins at him. “You can tell you fuck a designer regularly.” 

“Talk dirty to me, Mr. Eames,” Arthur commands. 

“Sectional,” says Eames. “Chesterfield. Camelback. Lawson-style.” He punctuates the words with brushes of kisses up Arthur’s shoulder, neck, to his chin and then his cheek, while his hand wanders down Arthur’s abdomen. “That doing it for you?” 

“Little more,” Arthur says, shifting to correct the tease of Eames’s hand.

“Loveseat,” Eames breathes, biting at Arthur’s lower lip. 

Arthur hooks a leg around Eames’s and rocks up toward friction. 

Eames gasps, “Cabriole.” 

“Fucking filthy,” Arthur says, and claws into a kiss.


	52. Chapter 52

“Do you have showings today?” Eames asks the next day, sticking his head into Arthur’s office. 

“No, today is a day that I line up showings for later in the week,” Arthur replies from his desk. You can tell it’s a serious workday because he’s using his desk for a change. “Why?” 

“I’m very bored, I was going to tag along on your showings.” 

Eames is actually lovely to bring on showings. All of Arthur’s clients fall desperately in love with him and then, by extension, with the houses Eames is in. Arthur considers him a secret weapon. 

But Arthur says, “No such luck. Why are you bored? Don’t you have couch pornography to work on?” 

“Are you referring to the fanfiction I’m working on: ‘Baby, I’ll Show You Where to Put That Ottoman’?” 

“No, and how long did it take you to think up that title?” 

“Most of the morning. Do you like it?” 

“Brain power well spent,” Arthur says drily. “But by ‘couch pornography,’ I meant your job for which you get paid. You know, designing rooms for people.” 

“I’m annoyed with all of them,” Eames sighs heavily. “I worked late last night mending entire psyches.” 

“You should catch up on the Internet, then,” Arthur suggests. “And I don’t mean fanfiction. There’s this whole medieval tapestry meme going around that’s fantastic.” 

“And here I thought you were going to suggest something serious like catching up on some design blogs,” remarks Eames. 

“You could do that, too,” Arthur agrees. 

Eames goes off and Arthur immerses himself in cross-referenced, color-coded spreadsheets and it’s really a very pleasant few hours because Arthur enjoys his job very much. 

Eames knocks on the office door on his way in. 

Arthur doesn’t even look up from his computer. “Done with the Internet already?”

“Darling, you have lost all track of time. It is long past lunchtime, so I have brought you sustenance so you don’t die of hunger.” 

Arthur glances up at the plate of Oreos Eames is offering. “Healthy,” he remarks. 

“It was this or carrot sticks,” says Eames.

“Yes. I bought those carrot sticks. To have with hummus. For a healthy lunch.” 

“Darling, please have some Oreos, they’re fully baked and everything.” Eames gives him a puppy-dog look. 

Arthur sighs and gives in to the Oreos. At least Eames has also brought milk. 

“Do you think Alec’s shagging one of the contestants?” Eames asks, settling himself on Arthur’s couch. 

“No.” Arthur dunks an Oreo in milk. “Do you?” 

“No. But the Internet certainly does.” 

“I think he’d be in a better fucking mood if he was getting any,” notes Arthur sourly. 

“So does the Internet. I support the get-Alec-laid tag.” 

Arthur gives him a look. 

“Not enough to volunteer my services,” Eames assures him. 

“Who do you think would be the most likely contestant to catch his eye?” asks Arthur, twisting the top off another Oreo. 

Eames snorts. “Himself. He is his own most potent crush.” 

Arthur laughs and shakes his head and says, “What are his fans like? Have you met them?” 

“I think he is also most of his fans. I spied on a few of their Twitter profiles today and I’m sure they’re mostly just him in disguise.” 

“He must have fans, though, Eames. He’s got a whole show. It must have viewers.” 

“It’s a manipulative, exploitative show, and I think half of the viewers are hate-watching it and the other half take it far, far too seriously. So that means only fifty percent of the viewership, let’s say, could technically be called Alec’s fans. And of those, I think most of them are like Alec: willfully oblivious that anything other than earnestness exists in the world.” 

“That’s all an act,” Arthur points out. “An extremely irritating but extremely effective act. ‘Oh, of course I seriously thought you run a sex club, because you told me that you did, and I must never be expected to comprehend sarcasm.’” 

“Yeah,” agrees Eames. “Be that as it may, I think it’s not an act for a lot of his fans. I think a lot of the nuance of the drama going on between all of us is lost on them.” 

“Does our drama have nuance?” deadpans Arthur. “Because I think our drama is pretty fucking in-your-face.” 

“Our drama has nuance if you really are as oblivious as Alec pretends to be. I mean, how often does Alec bring up anything in a straightforward manner? Every little dig is roundabout and buried in a million layers of affected innocence so he can protest ignorance at our apparent overreactions. If that wasn’t an act—if it was genuine—then you might really have no idea how fucked up everything is.” 

“I guess,” Arthur allows, and basically shoves a whole Oreo in his mouth without pretense because that seems like the sort of thing Alec Hart calls for. 

“In happier Internet news,” says Eames, “I’m in love with that medieval tapestry meme. In fact, I am going to have a drawing of the you in that meme hung by our bed. I have seldom seen such an accurate depiction of your ‘why the fuck am I surrounded by idiots’ face. Not even on your own face.” 

Arthur smiles and clicks a new tab open on his computer, and his plan is to figure out what Eames is talking about when it comes to the medieval tapestry meme, because Arthur hadn’t really paid attention to his own depiction. Except that there’s a Google alert on his name that gives him pause, and when he clicks over to Alec’s Twitter to confirm it, all thoughts of the medieval tapestry meme vanish from his head. 

“Uh-oh,” Eames says. “What’s that look? You look like you need a grenade launcher in your hand or something.” 

“Did you see this thing Alec tweeted?” Arthur demands.

“Evidently not,” says Eames slowly, rising from the couch, “or I would be sharing in your outrage.” 

Eames leans over Arthur’s desk so he can see the computer screen. 

_Arthur and Eames raised a good point that all of us judges should get to know all of the contestants, not just the ones on our teams! #goteamalec_

_So they’ve graciously offered to host a viewing party for everyone on the show for the next episode. At their awesome house! I can’t wait to see it! Aren’t they just the best? #arthur4everything_

_No comment on whether or not the night ends in the sex club. ;-)_

“A viewing party?” says Eames. 

“Son of a bitch,” says Arthur, and grabs a handful of Oreos.


	53. Chapter 53

Arthur’s first instinct is no, absolutely not. “He comes into this house over my dead body.” 

“A situation I’d rather avoid,” remarks Eames. 

“Who does he think he is that he can just invite everyone over to our house? Has he ever learned _manners_?” 

“I don’t think he’s overly concerned about manners,” says Eames, and snags an Oreo of his own. 

“Why are you so calm?” Arthur demands.

“Because, darling, this really isn’t a huge deal. We can laugh it off, say he misunderstood.” 

Arthur considers this. “And then will we look like jerks?” 

“Who cares?” asks Eames around a mouthful of Oreo. 

“ _I_ care,” says Arthur. “I don’t want people to think I’m…rude.” 

“Heaven forbid,” says Eames. 

“I’m serious,” says Arthur, and puts his head down on his desk with a sound of frustration. 

“He’s doing it just to get to you, you know,” says Eames. “You wouldn’t let him in here, way back when he showed up here before the show had even started filming, and now he’s determined to get in here just to spite you.” 

“I know,” says Arthur to his desk. 

He feels Eames shift, and when Arthur turns his head Eames’s head is also resting on the desk. 

Eames smiles at him and says, “Darling—”

Arthur interrupts him. “It’s astonishing to me that you put up with me.” 

“You clearly haven’t seen the full glory of your arse,” Eames informs him. 

“I’m serious,” Arthur says. “So you slept with some guy before we were dating. So what? I trust you. I don’t know why I’m so irritated by him.” 

“It’s probably because he’s an irritating person who’s deliberately trying to provoke you.” 

“But _why_? I mean, if I were him, I’d want as little to do with us as possible. Who wants to hang around their ex-boyfriend’s new boyfriend? But he’s constantly trying to bother us. And I don’t even think he wants to break us up and get you back. I mean, if he does, he’s doing the world’s worst job of it. He’s just…a constant third wheel. And now he actually wants to come over our house. Why? What good would that do him?” 

“It’s publicity, darling,” Eames says. “You were the big hit to come out of _Next Big Thing_. In order not to fade into your background, Alec needs to keep engaging with you. And he doesn’t care how that happens. He’s trying to ride your celebrity coattails.” 

“I don’t have celebrity coattails.”

“But you have a marvelous arse.” 

“Not the same thing.” 

“I know, I just wanted to point it out again. People should talk more about your arse online than they do. I don’t think you’ve been showing it off enough. Make sure you bend over during the next judging.” 

Arthur sighs and says, “Maybe we should have the party.” 

“We don’t have to have the party.” 

“No. I’m being ridiculous. We have parties here all the time. We’ll keep everyone in the public rooms and you’ll be a gracious host and I’ll be whatever it is I am during your parties. And it has the added advantage of not letting Alec have the satisfaction of watching us freak out over his little stunt. We’ll be just as cool and calm and collected as anyone ever was. Viewing party. Our house. Excellent idea. That’s what we should tweet.”

Eames grins and says, “I think it’s going to be fun.” 

“Yes. You would. You like parties. You like to show off your house. Not that you’re not entitled to be proud of it.” 

“It’s our house,” corrects Eames, “and I like to show off _you_.” Eames darts across the expanse of desk between them so that he can brush a kiss over his mouth. 

“You are the second-most ridiculous person in the universe after Alec,” Arthur tells him. 

“Can you imagine how much ridiculous was in the same room at the same time when we were involved?” 

“No. I can’t. I try not to.” 

“Sorry,” Eames chuckles, and nibbles apologetic kisses across Arthur’s lips. 

And Arthur suddenly realizes something and pulls back with a gasp, sitting up. “But it can’t be next Viewing Day.” 

“What?” Eames blinks up at him, shifting himself so that he’s no longer crouched over the desk. 

“Next Viewing Day is your birthday! We’re not having a huge party for your birthday, I’m taking you out, I have a whole thing planned.” 

“Oh,” says Eames, and looks pleased. “Do you? You don’t have to, but that’s lovely.” 

“So next Viewing Day. Viewing Day after this one.”

“Agreed. More time to get everything ready, anyway,” says Eames. “To allow your celebrity coattails to grow ever longer.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I don’t have—”

“Do you want to tweet or shall I?” 

“Me,” Arthur says. “Definitely.” 

_Sorry, Alec misunderstood. We’re not hosting a party this Viewing Day. It’ll be next Viewing Day! #armes4viewingparties_


	54. Chapter 54

Arthur finds it impossible to research for the secret room challenge. Because the rooms can be anything the contestants wish, Arthur doesn’t know what to anticipate. 

He should have anticipated a sex dungeon. 

Probably predictable that it’s designed by Trizz, too. 

Part of the fun of the secret room challenge is apparently supposed to be the cunning ways the contestants have devised to get into the rooms. Trizz’s room is reached by scaling a wall using conveniently placed sconces and shelves, and then poking your head up directly underneath a sex swing. 

“Beautifully positioned entry,” says Eames. “Did that sound dirty? I didn’t intend for that to sound dirty.” 

“Yes, you did,” says Arthur, because Eames never met a double entendre he didn’t want to take home and fuck, let’s be honest. 

“Maybe a little bit. But how can you help it, in a room like this?” 

The walls are pornographic murals. 

Eames, of course, goes right up to them and studies them closely and then remarks, “Not terribly realistic, are they?”

“You don’t retreat to your secret sex lair for realism,” says Trizz wisely. 

“The very motto of Arthur’s sex club,” Eames says. 

“I don’t have a sex club,” Arthur tells Trizz. 

“I heard Sebastian Stan is all upset about your sex club,” Trizz replies. 

“How does Sebastian Stan even know my _name_?” is what Arthur wants to know. 

Alec says, “Will we get to see the sex club during the viewing party? Have you heard that Arthur and Eames are hosting a viewing party?” he asks Trizz. 

Alec has not shut up about the fucking viewing party. Arthur says, “Yes. You will absolutely get to see my sex club. I will definitely show you my world-famous, extraordinarily exclusive sex club while you’re all at my house.” 

Alec looks at him for a long moment then says, “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?” 

Arthur takes a deep breath and turns away from Alec, studying the design, and finally he says, “Where’s the bed?” 

“What?” asks Trizz. 

“You designed an entire secret sex lair, and there’s no bed,” Arthur points out. 

Trizz looks around, as if startled by this. “Well, you know…”

“When overcome by passion, who needs a bed?” suggests Alec. 

“Me. I need a bed. Because who’s going to want to fuck on this carpet? Or those tiles over there?” 

“Can we even put any of this on the air?” Eames asks, sounding amused. 

“You’re thinking very practically about this whole sex lair thing,” says Trizz, sounding offended. “It’s a secret sex lair. You just slink in here and act depraved for a little while. I don’t know.” He shrugs and gestures. 

Eames says, “And this is why Arthur runs a world-famous, extraordinarily exclusive sex club and not you. The devil is in the details, you know. With sex and with sex lairs.” 

“This room does seem rather superficial,” says Alec. “Have you given any thought to the _meaning_ of sex?” 

“The meaning of it?” repeats Trizz. 

“It doesn’t have a meaning,” Arthur says. “It just is.” 

Alec looks horrified. “Arthur! Sex is very meaningful!” 

“Not always,” says Arthur. “Not all the time. Sometimes it’s just sex. Just two people and the proper parts and no deeper meaning whatsoever.” 

Alec looks about to debate him. 

“You don’t want to argue with me about this,” says Arthur mildly. 

This does give Alec pause. 

Eames says, “I think we have gotten very far off track. I have a serious question about what exactly these three individuals are doing in this particular mural, because I cannot account for all of their…appendages, let’s say.” 

Which is how Arthur ends up standing and listening to Trizz explain the mechanics of the painted threesome and Arthur has no explanation for how insane his life is, frankly. 

They go straight from Trizz to Misty Rainbow and Arthur is braced for horror, but is pleasantly surprised when Misty Rainbow’s secret room is just a meditation room. Although it makes sense, because that was what she was designing the closet to be all along. It’s entered through a sleek and simple mechanism of a narrow part of a wall sinking into the ground, and it is very dim and cozy, with low, inviting seating all around. There’s a water feature on one wall and all of the colors are dark shades of neutral and it’s one of the most relaxing rooms Arthur’s ever stepped into. 

Eames looks around and says to Misty Rainbow, “You’re…the one who had the eye-bleeding sheep last time, right?” 

“Yes,” Misty Rainbow confirms, without any evident comprehension that this room is light-years away from the frightening violence of that one. 

“This is nice,” Arthur tells her, and smiles at her, because he’s pleased he can be genuine about it. 

“What is it supposed to be?” asks Alec, as if it’s another mural of a threesome and he can’t quite parse it. 

Misty Rainbow says, “It’s a meditation room.” 

“For?” asks Alec. 

“Meditating.” 

Alec looks around him and says uncertainly, “I see.” 

“So that you can turn from the demons of modern consumerism inward, to the rewards of your soul,” explains Misty Rainbow. 

Alec gives her a sympathetic look. “Your soul must be very tortured indeed.” 

“No. I meditate. Probably your soul is tortured.” 

Eames has a coughing fit. 

Sunny, who was the contestant who had designed the vale of tears closet, designs a panic room this time around. Arthur supposes so that she can sit and cry in peace. The panic room is equipped with lots of high-end electronics but Eames points out that it doesn’t seem very welcoming. 

“If you were stuck in here because the world was going to hell outside, wouldn’t you want it to be comforting?” he asks. “Shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, popcorn and a couple of board games? What are you going to do to pass the time?” 

“This room needs to be combined with Trizz’s sex lair,” comments Arthur. 

Eames barks laughter. “Together they would be the perfect room. Now there’s an idea: sex lair safe room. Surely that’s been done before, right?” 

“I would like to stop thinking about sex lairs, personally,” says Arthur. 

Alec says solemnly, “Sunny, I think it took a lot of strength to construct a room that can provide for you the safety of the womb.” 

“Of the womb?” echoes Eames. 

“Yes,” Alec says. “That first security that we had and lost and spend our whole lives looking for.” 

“I don’t know,” says Eames. “I love my mum but I think I’m pretty pleased to be free of her womb.” 

“I think it’s time to move on to the next room,” says Arthur. 

The next room is by Jess, who has an astonishingly normal name by _Next Big Thing_ standards. She had provided the coffins in the closet last time, but this time around she produces an utterly delightful speakeasy, entered by pulling a certain bottle on the shelf behind the bar. 

“A room for the people in your house who you really, _really_ like,” Jess explains. 

Arthur thinks that she is speaking in his language. “And everyone else wonders where the good party is?” 

“Exactly,” Jess grins at him.

“I am disappointed, though, Jess,” says Alec. “I thought we had made such a breakthrough last week, but this week you are back to superficial designs. You have not dug in…” Alec puts his hand on her chest. “ _Here_.” 

“This is me digging in here,” Jess replies. “Deep in my heart, I really think that I need more alcohol at the moment.” 

“Hear, hear,” says Eames, from behind the bar. “How about some martinis, hmm?” 

“All the alcohol’s real,” Jess tells him. 

“You’re a genius,” Eames says, and winks at her as he goes about setting up martini glasses. 

“I don’t think this is very professional,” Alec says. 

“I don’t think wearing a hat indoors at all times is very professional,” Eames rejoins. “Yet here we are.” 

“It’s a statement,” Alec says hotly. “Okay? You never understood—” He cuts himself off and glances quickly toward Arthur, who pretends to be examining a pewter lamp very closely. Then he looks back at Eames and says again, haughtily this time, “It’s a _statement_.”

“Have a drink, Alec,” Eames says affably, and slides him a martini. 

They carry the martinis with them to the next secret room, which is a library. It’s Scott’s entry, and Arthur can see what Eames means about Scott being a bit dull. If the Internet were voting again, Scott would definitely be gone. There’s nothing offensive about the library but there’s nothing incredible about it, either. 

“I would have gone full-on fairy-tale,” Eames says. “A secret library should have been all little nooks and crannies, things like that.” 

“I wanted a cleaner feeling,” Scott says. 

“Libraries aren’t meant to be clean, though,” Eames says. “Not like this. Not sharp. Libraries are meant to be hushed. Our voices are echoing in here.” 

“I disagree,” says Alec. 

“You disagree that our voices are echoing in here? I think there’s not much to disagree on there. Listen. _Fedora_!” Eames shouts. 

It does echo back a little bit. 

Alec frowns and says, “I think it’s an important statement on how we acquire knowledge in modern times. The fairy-tale library you’re speaking of is dying out.” 

“Which is why we should—” starts Eames. 

Arthur says, “I think Alec has a point.” 

Eames stares at him. “You think what?” 

“I think it’s a sad, sterile space in here. It certainly doesn’t make me want to read. And Alec’s right, that it’s a modern commentary. How we acquire knowledge. Actually, we really don’t. We just stick everything on the Internet and pretend that it’s true.” Arthur doesn’t wait to see if Alec registers the dig or not. Arthur moves on. 

Jevin, who did the prison closet, does a safe this time around. Probably predictable. It is entirely empty. Apparently all of the design went into the quality of the materials. 

“Unbreakable,” Jevin says. “All of it.” 

“What would you keep in here?” Eames wonders. 

“Everything of value,” says Jevin. 

“Your heart,” says Alec solemnly. 

“A fedora collection,” says Eames. 

“The secret you don’t want told,” says Arthur. 

“That actually could have worked,” says Eames. “You could have made this a _literal_ secret room. Keep a little notebook in here and steal in to write down all the secret thoughts in your head.” 

“I feel like that could be used as evidence against you,” Jevin says bluntly. 

Eames hesitates. “In what way?” 

“ _Every_ way,” Jevin asserts. 

It’s a little unsettling, which is why Arthur is relieved to see that their next contestant is Ariadne. Ariadne’s secret room is accessed through a portrait that swings away from the wall to reveal a round hole and Ariadne says, practically bouncing with excitement, “It’s a slide.” 

“Oh, that is fantastic,” says Eames, and immediately launches himself down the slide. 

Alec follows before Arthur can; Arthur rolls his eyes good-naturedly at Ariadne and Ariadne grins back. 

When Arthur reaches the bottom of the slide, Eames is enthusing, “Darling, we _have_ to put a slide in our house, stairs are _so_ over-rated.” 

“So we won’t be seeing any slides when we’re there for the viewing party?” asks Alec. 

“There’s a sex slide in my sex club, don’t worry,” says Arthur. 

And then he turns his attention to Ariadne’s room. It makes him think of the fairy-tale room Eames had wanted out of Scott. The ceiling looks like it’s tufted white leather, and colorful chandeliers spring from it like flowers twisting into bloom. One of the walls is composed entirely of see-through storage that appears to be filled with different kinds of candies. Another wall has been draped with white cloth and a film is projecting onto it. The middle of the room is taken up entirely with a variety of different types of comfortable seating, including a couple of sunken nooks, all of them in various shades of purple. 

“This,” says Ariadne, “is what I would want a secret room for. I would come here, and I would eat a bunch of junk food, and I would watch trashy television and read fanfiction.” 

“I support this room,” says Eames. “Have you read the one with the hot shepherds?” 

“Hasn’t everyone?” says Ariadne. 

Alec says, “So you’ve created an entire room that’s just for sitting.” 

“Most rooms in a house are generally used for sitting. Except for the bedroom, which is used for laying down. Why not?” 

“Well?” Alec says sourly to Arthur. “I suppose you think this is brilliant?” 

Arthur lets himself fall backward into one of the sunken nooks. The cushions catch him fluffily. Arthur imagines this is what it would be like to leap onto a cloud. If clouds weren’t composed of water vapor and were actually as cottony as they look. 

Arthur laughs and says, “Of course it’s brilliant. Alec, you don’t have enough fun, and that is not something I say, like, ever.” 

“It’s true,” Eames says. “Arthur is always the heart of gravitas.” He belly flops into the nook next to Arthur and says, “This is divine. It’s like a grown-up ball pit.” 

“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” demands Alec. 

“Would read fanfiction in this little nest thing here,” Arthur announces. “A-plus. Top-notch.” 

Ariadne beams. 

They only have Gon left and Arthur thinks it’s going to be tough to top Ariadne’s room. Luckily for Gon, he goes very outside the box and designs a secret bathroom. It’s meant to evoke a Roman bath, and it’s done all over in incredibly intricate mosaics that must have taken forever, and Arthur wants to swim laps in the extravagant bathtub, while Eames is predictably blown away by the shower. 

Alec just says, “Perhaps you could explain to me, Gon. What is this room _for_?”

Gon, after a moment says, “Well. What do you use your bathroom for?” 

Alec looks offended. “I know what a bathroom is for. Why would you need a _secret_ one?” 

“For fun,” Gon says. 

“This room and Ariadne’s room should get married,” Arthur announces. 

“And be pointless rooms together,” says Alec. 

As if that’s a _bad_ thing.

“Yes,” says Arthur firmly. 

Eames says, “Darling, come and see this shower? Can we get this shower?” 

“We already have a ridiculous shower,” says Arthur, obediently walking over to admire it. 

“We need two. There’s two of us. We each need a shower.” 

“You told me the reason we had to get a ridiculous shower was so it would be easier for us to share one shower at the same time.” 

“Oh, damn, I did say that, didn’t I? What if we install Ariadne’s slide and we slide down it into this shower?” 

“It’d be safer if you slid down it into the bathtub.” 

“Yes!” exclaimed Eames. “Genius! Just like a water slide!” 

“I installed this bit just for you, Arthur,” Gon says, referring to a corner Arthur hadn’t noticed before. “I call it the towel corner.” 

The mosaics on the wall and floor are covered with terry-cloth, and there are piled heaps of towels and robes. 

“You can change it all out really easily, of course,” explains Gon. “To keep it clean. But the rest of the room was hard so I thought it needed some softness.” 

“And you’re thinking of bacteria,” says Arthur approvingly. “Well done.” 

“This is why we need more fraternizing,” complains Alec. “You’re the only judge he knows so he’s designing for you.” 

“Which is exactly why Eames and I had the brilliant idea to host a viewing party,” says Arthur amiably, and smiles angelically at Alec. 

Alec frowns, and Arthur thinks that this has definitely been the best judging day yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I started this fic because a family trip got canceled. Amazingly enough, this fic has now kept me company up until the next planned trip. HOW IS THIS FIC SO LONG? Anyway, I theoretically leave tomorrow for ten days at home so I will probably not be updating nearly as much. But I'll be back once spring break is over!


	55. Chapter 55

On Eames’s birthday, Arthur leaves him snoring in their bed and goes into the kitchen and opens a fresh tin of tea leaves that he’d bought for this occasion and hidden. 

Not difficult to hide things from Eames in their kitchen, since Eames basically only ever ventures into the single cupboard in which he stashes tea and sugar and Marmite. 

Arthur is in the process of making Eames a proper cup of tea and spreading Marmite on toast when he hears the Skype call come in over Eames’s tablet in the living room. 

And because Arthur doesn’t want Eames’s family to think that he’s taken up with a rude American, he answers the call. 

“Hello, Arthur!” croons Eames’s mother upon seeing him. 

“Hello, Arthur!” echoes his father. They both send him identical, cheerful waves. 

“Hi,” Arthur says, and tries a cheerful wave of his own, although he can see from the tiny rectangle of him in the lower right-hand corner that his wave just looks slightly demented. Eames’s family can make all sorts of crazy things look naturally adorable and alluring, like silly waves and clashing floral wallpapers and couches. 

“Where is he?” asks Eames’s mother. “We’re going to sing him Happy Birthday.” 

“Maggie made me learn harmony for it,” says Eames’s father. And then he chortles. Because Eames’s father is the sort of man who chortles. And of course it’s a charming chortle. 

“Stop it,” says Eames’s mother, blushing a little bit, and elbows his father in the ribs. “Where is he, Arthur?” 

“Still sleeping,” Arthur says.

Eames’s mother gasps. “Did we call too early?” 

Eames’s father says, “I _told_ you it was too early.” 

“It’s a normal hour,” says Arthur truthfully. “He’s a late sleeper.”

“Oh, yes, he always was,” says Eames’s mother fondly. 

“We’ll just have sing to you then, Arthur, and you can tell Eames for us,” suggests Eames’s father. 

“Oh, hush, you,” says Eames’s mother, “we’ll just ring back later. Arthur, dear, how are you?” 

“I’m good,” says Arthur. 

“You’re looking very thin. Has Eames been feeding you properly?” 

For some reason, Eames’s mother was convinced he could cook. When Arthur had asked Eames about this, Eames had told some incomprehensible story full of British slang and schoolboy customs Arthur didn’t understand and finally Arthur said, _Never mind, let’s just have sex_. “I’m fine,” says Arthur. 

“Of course he’s fine.” Eames’s father leaps to his defense. “He’s got to look fetching in those suits, hasn’t he? Arthur, this fellow came through town, a record producer type, isn’t that what he said he was, Maggie?” 

“Oh, yes,” says Maggie. “Record producer. _Very_ posh. Should have seen his car.”

“Had a fit every time a bird flew overhead. ‘You’ve got a lot of birds here, haven’t you?’ he said to me. I felt like buying a bird call or something to attract more. Anyway, he stopped in town ‘scouting talent,’ he said, which I guess is what they’re calling it these days—”

“Albert, do not scandalize Arthur,” Maggie warns him. 

Albert waves Maggie off. “But the point is that after he was in, everyone in the pub agreed that he was not nearly as smart a dresser as you.” 

Maggie nods vociferously. “It’s true, Arthur. ‘Maggie,’ they said to me, ‘your boy’s American boyfriend, he wore his clothes better than that posh git.’”

Arthur isn’t sure what to make of being the top of the best-dressed list of Eames’s tiny town. He thinks he’s flattered, but he’s mostly touched any of them ever think of him at all. He’d felt very overwhelmed the one time Eames had taken him there, out of his element in the close-knit family aspect of the place. Arthur hadn’t had much of a home growing up, had only had his mother and a series of apartments; Eames had had a home that was an entire village; he had the very opposite of Arthur’s problem. Arthur was sure that everyone there thought him odd and aloof, but he hadn’t known what to do in the midst of all of it. 

And Arthur still doesn’t know what to do with it, so Arthur says, “Thanks,” and hopes that’s a decent enough response. 

Maggie suddenly exclaims, “Oh! We’ve been watching your show!” 

“Matty illegally downloads it for us, you know,” adds Albert. 

“And then we all watch it together at the pub,” continues Maggie. “We are all of us terribly addicted to it. We’re rooting for Ariadne, we think she’s quite cute, but you made Gon’s designs much better, I honestly couldn’t see what Eamesie was on about with Gon’s designs in the very first episode, they were so cold and sterile.” 

“Arthur, do you two lose money because we’re illegally downloading it?” Albert asks. “Shall we send you a bit?” 

“We’re fine,” Arthur assures him. 

“We do not know what to make of Alec,” says Maggie. 

“You obviously don’t like him, and I trust your judgment, Arthur,” Albert tells him staunchly. “I said, ‘Maggie, that boy chose our Eamesie, so he has good judgment.’”

Arthur knows he blushes a little bit there because he can see it on the screen. “It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s that…” _Your idiot son slept with him because of the fact that he’s an idiot and now Alec is making it his life mission to irritate me_. Arthur decides it’s easier to say, “No, you’re right, I don’t like him. We just have very different personality types.” He thinks that’s a diplomatic way of putting it. 

“Well, I think you’re handling it beautifully,” Maggie says, “having Eamesie’s ex-boyfriend frolicking around you like that.” 

Arthur thinks, _Frolicking? Is that what you’d call that?_ Arthur says, “It wasn’t very serious with them,” and then wonders if that doesn’t make it sound worse: _Oh, your son was just having random sex with people, you know how it goes._

“Does he wear the hat all the time?” Maggie asks. 

“All the time,” Arthur answers. 

“That is just very odd,” is Maggie’s assessment. 

“He’s odd, that one. Arthur doesn’t like him. What does that tell you? Look at Arthur’s taste.”

“And Eamesie’s taste,” adds Maggie. “Because Eamesie chose the right one.” Maggie nods at Arthur, as if the matter is now closed for discussion. 

“Well, it’s not hard to choose someone better than that Hart bloke, as far as I can see,” says Albert. 

Maggie looks aghast at him. 

Albert says hastily, “But of course you’re lots better, Arthur.” 

Arthur wants to just sink into the ground because of the awkwardness of this whole conversation. Luckily, Eames walks into the living room at that moment, presentable enough to be on camera, so Arthur says, “Oh, look who’s up,” and turns the tablet so that he can be out of the spotlight for a little while. 

Eames smiles and waves and says, “Look, darling, my parents have remembered the existence of their only child on the planet.” Then he collapses onto the couch next to Arthur, which really doesn’t put Arthur out of the spotlight much. 

“You’re the one who moved across an ocean, Eamesie,” his mother reminds him good-naturedly, and then she and Albert launch into _Happy Birthday_. It does have harmony, but it isn’t very good harmony. 

Eames beams throughout. Arthur looks stricken and tries not to. 

When they are done, Eames says, “I moved an entire ocean away and it’s still not far enough to avoid your terrible singing. We’ll have to move to Antarctica next, darling.” 

“It’s too cold in Antarctica for Arthur,” Maggie says. “You know he likes warm weather.” 

“Who’s dating him?” demands Eames, mock-offended. “You or me?”

“I am just looking out for him. Aren’t I just looking out for you, Arthur?” 

“She’s right about the warm weather,” Arthur tells Eames. 

Eames grins at him and kisses the dormant dimple spot on his left cheek, which is a ridiculous thing to do in front of his parents, and then he says, “Have you been following the show? Do you brag now about how your son dates a massive celebrity?” 

“We brag about both of you,” says Eames’s mother, and beams at Arthur. 

Arthur is embarrassed by the praise; he is really terrible at handling this stuff and he can see on the screen that he’s gone unattractively red and is squirming a little bit. So he says, “I should leave to your catching-up,” and then winces, because of course that is the worst possible thing to say when your boyfriend’s mother says that she basically likes you a lot: _oh, great, let me run away from you now_. 

“Were you making me tea?” Eames asks him. “I smell the lofty scent of a fresh Earl Grey.” 

“No, you don’t,” Arthur says. 

“How dare you impugn my British nose? I can smell tea a mile away.” 

“It’s Scottish breakfast tea,” Arthur informs him. “Not Earl Grey.” 

Eames gives him his kid-on-Christmas look. “Even lovelier.” Then he says to his parents, “Arthur is going to run and make me birthday tea.” 

“You don’t have to, Arthur,” says Eames’s mother. 

“Eames can make his own tea,” says Eames’s father. 

“It’s a special birthday surprise thing,” says Arthur awkwardly, hoping he doesn’t sound too much like he’s trying to escape. 

“Before you go,” says Eames’s mother, “how is your lovely mother?” 

This is how Eames’s family is: Eames’s mother has never met Arthur’s mother. She’d asked about his family during Arthur’s trip to England, and Arthur had stammered something about it being just him and his mom, and Maggie had basically adopted her as one of their own. Arthur went his whole life being cautious and wary about letting people in. Eames and his parents just pull everyone into their orbit recklessly, even people they’ve never even met, like Arthur’s mother. Arthur has never been able to determine if he thinks this is insane or so touching he can’t stand it. 

Arthur just says, as he always does, “She’s fine. Doing well.” 

“Tell her we said hello,” chirps in Eames’s father. 

Arthur tries to imagine what his mother would say if he told her that Eames’s parents say hello to her. He thinks she would say in bewilderment, _But I don’t know them_ , because Arthur definitely gets his unfailing pragmatism from his mother. 

Arthur says, “Will do,” and smiles brightly at Eames’s parents and tries a wave that just looks demented again and says, “See you later,” which he thinks sounds so completely inane he can’t stand himself. 

They call pleasantries after him and he makes his escape to the kitchen, where he listens absently to village gossip while he finishes making Eames’s breakfast. When he walks back out with it, they are telling Eames the story about the not-as-well-dressed-as-Arthur record producer.

“And speaking of Arthur,” Eames says, smiling at him as he puts the plate of toast and cup of tea on the coffee table, “he’s just come in with breakfast so I really should go before it gets cold.” 

Arthur frowns and says, “I don’t mean to interrupt. You can eat while you Skype.” Which seems rude, now that he thinks about it. “Or…I can just make more later.” 

“Don’t be silly,” Maggie calls from the tablet, even though Arthur is out of viewpoint. “Enjoy your birthday, dearest boy.” 

This, Arthur knows, is directed at Eames, although he wouldn’t be surprised if Maggie started calling him _dearest boy_. 

Eames smiles at the tablet and says, “Thank you. I will. Enjoy the rest of the show.” 

“We are looking forward to the new episode,” says Maggie. 

“Matty will snag it tonight,” adds Albert. 

“Bye,” Eames says, and he waves and doesn’t look like an idiot. 

Arthur, so as not to seem rude, leans into the screen and says, “Bye,” and pretends that he’s waving off-screen. 

Maggie and Albert wave and blow kisses and sign off. 

Eames lifts his eyebrows at Arthur and says, “Is that Marmite on my toast?” 

“Yes,” says Arthur. “Happy birthday.” 

“Seeing as it’s my birthday,” Eames leers at him as he puts the tablet aside, “will you let me do filthy things with the Marmite?” 

“No,” answers Arthur, but straddles himself across Eames’s lap anyway. “I didn’t offend your parents, did I?” 

“My parents bloody adore you,” Eames points out. 

Arthur doesn’t understand why—Eames is an excellent boyfriend, Arthur generally rates himself as about a six out of ten—but he also knows that it’s no use saying that to Eames, because Eames will insist on explaining to Arthur all the reasons why he’s spectacular, starting with nonsense about his droll sense of humor and ending with something about his true romantic heart or whatever.

And this is supposed to be a day all about Eames, so Arthur just says quickly, “I didn’t want to offend them, running off to make your breakfast and then cutting your call short.” 

“Darling, stop it, they thought it tremendously charming that you made me breakfast and I know all about the village gossip now, I’m completely filled in, you didn’t cut our call short at all. And I’m not entirely sure why we’re talking about my parents when you’re sitting on my lap.” 

“You’re right,” says Arthur. “I’m sorry. Happy birthday.” Then he takes a deep breath and then he takes a huge bite of one of the pieces of Marmite-spread toast. 

Eames’s jaw drops in almost comical shock. “ _Darling_ ,” he says in reverent wonder. 

Arthur chews and swallows and says, “I’m sorry, but that stuff is just fucking gross. And I have had some gross things in my mouth, let’s be honest.” 

“If that’s supposed to be a reference to any of my bodily fluids, I refuse to acknowledge it.” 

“Well, it’s not a reference to any of Alec’s bodily fluids because I’m not the one qualified to reference those,” rejoins Arthur primly. 

“Ha ha,” says Eames, “it’s a good thing I love you so much when you’re being a prick.” 

“Hey, I just ate Marmite for you, okay?” 

“You did,” says Eames, sounding awed again, and then tugs Arthur in for a kiss. “You _taste_ like Marmite,” he enthuses, as if this is a good thing. 

“I know,” Arthur says. “It’s got a lingering aftertaste, don’t you think?” 

“Let’s see if we can’t fill your mouth with other gross things,” suggests Eames. 

“This is the kind of really hot sex talk that happens in the fanfiction about us, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, fanfiction can only aspire to the level of hotness my sex talk reaches,” Eames assures him. 

“And everyone everywhere can only aspire to the level of your ego,” Arthur deadpans. 

“Darling,” says Eames, but then follows up whatever he was going to say with a deep filthy kiss that makes up for the horrible dirty talk. 

“It’s a good thing for you that you kiss like that,” Arthur pants into his open mouth, “because you don’t need hot sex talk when you kiss like that.” 

“You swallowed Marmite for me,” Eames says solemnly. “This must be true love.”


	56. Chapter 56

“Best birthday ever,” says Eames into his pillow. 

“You had Marmite on toast and then we had sex,” responds Arthur drily, rolling out of bed. “That’s basically, like, a Tuesday morning for us.” 

“Yes, lucky bastards we are,” mumbles Eames. “And no, today was different: You made me the Marmite on toast. You _tried_ some.”

Arthur glances over at Eames’s rapturous face. Eames had looked pretty blissed-out from the sex but he looks more blissed-out by the Marmite. “I think you have an unnatural attraction to the idea of Marmite and me.” 

“No, it’s perfectly natural,” Eames says, and opens his eyes and frowns at Arthur. “What are you doing way over there?” 

“Taking a shower, eventually. Getting distracted by the mess you make of the laundry, at the moment.” 

“Why are you taking a shower? It’s my birthday, come over here and spend the entire day in bed.” 

“And that’s basically just a Sunday for us,” Arthur points out, because, Christ, they really lead the world’s most decadent lifestyle. 

“Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?” 

Arthur gives up on determining which of Eames’s piles are dirty laundry, decides to call them all dirty, and kicks them into one big pile. “Because it’s your birthday and I want it to be more special than sex.” Arthur disappears into the bathroom and turns on the spaceship shower and hopes that will be the end of the conversation. 

It is, of course, not the end of the conversation. 

Eames appears outside the spaceship shower, leaning on the counter, arms crossed, frowning. “What’s more special than sex?”

“It’s a surprise,” says Arthur. “You should get in the shower.” 

Eames brightens. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Arthur shakes his head. “Because you have to make yourself decent in order to spend the day outside.” 

“We’re spending the day outside?” 

“No. You are. Because I have things to do here.” 

“What things?” 

“Special surprise birthday things.” 

Eames considers him. “Is the answer ‘making love’?”

“What?” 

“What’s more special than sex? Is it ‘making love’?”

Arthur stares at him. “No more cheesy fanfiction for you.” 

“I’m just _saying_. You were the one who started babbling about things being more special than sex.” 

Arthur turns off the spaceship shower and reaches for his towel and uses the distraction of drying himself off to try to mask his awkwardness when he says, “You do nice things for me, all the time. You buy me special gifts you’ll know I like and you make me laugh when you know I need it and you’re constantly talking me down off of ledges. It’s your birthday and I wanted to, you know, pay you back a little bit.” 

Eames uses the edges of Arthur’s towel to snag him and tug him in. “You’ve planned something—you’ve got your Serious Planning Look on your face—and I’m going to stop giving you a hard time because I know you put a lot of time and thought and love into whatever it is you’ve got going on today. But I want to make sure that you know that you didn’t have to plan any big thing. I don’t need special, grand-gesture days to know I love you. I love you on every typical Tuesday morning.” 

Which is exactly the sort of incredibly romantic thing to say that comes so effortlessly to Eames and that Arthur is trying to rise to the level of, at least a little bit, today. “I know,” says Arthur, because he does. He gives Eames a quick kiss. 

“Okay,” says Eames, and gives him a not-quite-as-quick kiss in response. “I just wanted to make sure you know that, and now I will shower and make myself scarce for you.” 

“One thing,” Arthur says. “I was planning on skipping the show tonight. We can have Viewing Day tomorrow. Is that okay?” 

“Darling, somehow I think the Internet will get along just fine without us,” remarks Eames wryly.


	58. Chapter 58

Arthur is pointlessly and stupidly nervous. 

He knows that there is absolutely no reason to be nervous. He knows beyond any shadow of any doubt that Eames loves him an incredibly absurd amount and would barely have noticed if Arthur had forgotten his birthday entirely, and so he know that Eames will love anything Arthur gives him. But Arthur wants him to love his birthday gift because it genuinely makes him happy, and not because Eames is just good-natured and easy-going and inclined to love everything. 

Arthur—dressed down because Eames loves Arthur’s suits but loves best when he gets the scruffier all-to-himself Arthur, the jeans and t-shirts and uncombed hair and glasses instead of contacts—gives himself a mirror pep talk. 

“This is stupid,” he tells his reflection. “You don’t need a pep talk. Stop being nervous. You’re going to have a spectacular night.” He nods firmly at himself. His reflection looks stern and adamant. 

Then Arthur goes back to the living room to wait. He’s pushed the coffee table out of the way and spread blankets out to make themselves a little nest to curl up into on the floor because the couch isn’t quite wide enough to be conducive to an especially good snuggle. He sits on the floor and pours them out glasses of wine and rests his hand on the top of the to-go boxes to make sure they’re still warm and glances at his watch and sends out a quick tweet. _Today is Eames’s birthday so we’re celebrating! Enjoy #nextbigthing and we’ll see you tomorrow! #eames4birthdaycake_

Eames comes in just as Arthur is posting the tweet. He lifts his eyebrows at Arthur and says, “What’s all this?” Then he drops to the floor with him and crowds into his space. “Do I get to ravish you on the floor?”

“I ordered food,” Arthur says, even as he lets Eames tip him backwards. 

“How can I be expected to notice food when you look like this?” Eames asks, and bites underneath Arthur’s jaw.

“It’s going to get cold,” Arthur warns him, even as he puts his hands in his hair. 

“Yeah, but you’re hot,” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows at him. 

“Yeah, but I’ll still be hot after the food gets cold, whereas you’ll be the one complaining about having to re-heat a ruined steak from Max’s.” 

Eames lifts his head from where he had been nibbling at Arthur’s ear. “Steak from Max’s?”

“And loaded sweet potatoes,” Arthur says. 

Eames considers. “Can we hold this particular thought?” He lifts a hand to wave between Arthur and himself. 

“Yes, I think we can pretty safely hold this particular thought,” agrees Arthur dryly.

Eames kisses him quickly, then rolls away to open the to-go boxes. “Steak from Max’s,” he says, tucking in enthusiastically. “You’re the best.” 

“I know,” Arthur says, eating his own steak with a little more dignity than Eames is currently displaying. “Is it warm enough?”

“It’s marvelous,” Eames says. “Why did you order in?”

“I didn’t want to go out and have photos end up online somewhere. Tonight is all about the two of us. Well. The two of us and one other person.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Eames. “Is it Sebastian Stan?” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “No, it’s not fucking—It’s Willy Wonka.” 

“Willy Wonka?” repeats Eames, after a moment. 

“I queued up the movie. I thought you might want to watch it with me.”

“Darling!” exclaims Eames, sounding delighted. “ _Yes_ , I want to watch Willy Wonka with you! Put it on!” 

“We’ll keep holding the sex thought?” Arthur deadpans, as he picks up the remote control. 

“For the time being,” Eames says, already settling deeper into their nest of blankets, happily chomping away at his steak. 

“Well, now we know the hierarchy of your turn-ons. Number one is a good steak, number two is Willy Wonka, number three is me in glasses.” Arthur presses play. 

“Don’t sell yourself short, darling, you and Willy are at least tied,” Eames assures him. 

“Uh-huh,” says Arthur and braces himself for the next one hundred minutes.


	59. Chapter 59

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Eames continues to have THE LONGEST BIRTHDAY EVER and I manage to spend a thousand words talking about Willy Wonka. 
> 
> I almost accidentally posted the KtCR chapter into this fic instead. I caught myself and fixed it, but apparently this caused AO3 to mess up the chapter numbering in this fic. Oops!

At the end of the movie Willy Wonka assures Charlie that he will live happily ever after. Eames has tucked Arthur firmly up against him, which means that Arthur can’t see him without shifting, but he thinks that Eames sounds suspiciously sniffly. Arthur mainly feels like he wants to know whether or not Willy Wonka heartlessly murdered all the other kids. Arthur’s opinion is you can’t trust a man who decides to leave a business to a random strange twelve-year-old like that’s some sort of fun gift and not at all creepy. 

“Did you think it was marvelous?” Eames asks, managing to sound sighing and starry-eyed. 

“Yes,” says Arthur. 

Eames bursts out laughing. “Liar,” he accuses without heat. “You shameless hussy of a liar.” 

“The songs were good,” Arthur says, looking for something honestly positive to say. “Aside from the creepy one on the boat.” 

“But that’s the best one!” Eames protests. “There’s no earthly way of _know _ing—”__

__“You’re ruining the mood,” Arthur informs him._ _

__“Did we have a mood going on?”_ _

__“Whatever mood is happening at any given moment, that song has the ability to ruin.”_ _

__“Is it raining?” sings Eames. “Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing?”_ _

__“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, and kisses him to shut him up._ _

__“Tell me your honest opinion,” Eames says into his mouth._ _

__“We weren’t drunk enough for that movie,” says Arthur, and tugs at Eames’s bottom lip because sometimes he thinks Eames’s bottom lip is his favorite Eames part._ _

__“You make a good point. I should have poured more wine into you.” Eames fists his hands into Arthur’s t-shirt, starts tugging it up and out of the way so that he can spread his hands along Arthur’s back. “I would have enjoyed drunk you ranting at Violet.”_ _

__Arthur leans back a little, Eames’s hands warm and familiar and lovely on the small of his back, and says seriously, “Violet was a fucking asshole.”_ _

__“All the kids were fucking arseholes except for Charlie,” Eames points out._ _

__“Don’t pretend like your hero Willy Wonka is free from blame, either. We are meant to understand that man to be unstable and in need of help, right?”_ _

__“It’s all an act he’s putting on,” says Eames._ _

__“An act? His enslaved Oompa Loompas? His lack of any health and safety standards?”_ _

__“Health and safety standards?” Eames lifts his eyebrows. “Christ, that is such a you thing to say I can’t stand it. I want to embroider it into our bedspread.”_ _

__“The liability issues in that factory, Eames! His insurance rates must have been through the roof.”_ _

__“You think a man like Willy Wonka had insurance?”_ _

__“Jesus,” Arthur realizes, “that movie was terrifying. That movie was scarier than that stupid _Ring_ movie you made us watch.” _ _

__“Hey, that was a good movie,” Eames protests._ _

__“That was a terrible movie. You have terrible taste in movies. I haven’t even gotten started on Charlie’s grandparents. What the fuck, Grandpa Joe, you can’t get out of bed to help Charlie’s poor struggling mother but you can sure as fuck run around good as new to take a tour of some sketchy chocolate factory?”_ _

__“You make a good point about Grandpa Joe.”_ _

__“I only ever make good points,” says Arthur. “I’m about to make another good point.”_ _

__“Please do,” encourages Eames._ _

__“You’ve got me fucking tied with a man wearing a purple velvet coat? This alarms me.”_ _

__“That coat’s the best part.” Eames waggles his eyebrows at him. “You should wear that coat for me someday. I’d be appreciative.”_ _

__“How about I be a Willy Wonka shepherd for you? Kill two birds with one stone.”_ _

__“Now there’s a fanfic I’d read,” Eames says._ _

__“Baa, baa, I’m a prick who cares little about the well-being of others and prefers to stage elaborate ruses to cover the questionable legality of everything I do.”_ _

__“Is that your impression of a Willy Wonka shepherd?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“Shepherds don’t baa, you know. Sheep baa.”_ _

__Arthur considers. “I think the shepherds baa to call the sheep, don’t they? Like, ‘baa, baa, come here’?”_ _

__“Do people bark at dogs to call dogs?”_ _

__“Dogs aren’t sheep. Don’t pretend you’re some sort of shepherd expert,” says Arthur._ _

__“Which of us has read the hot shepherd fic?” Eames asks._ _

__Arthur rolls his eyes._ _

__Eames says, “Exactly.”_ _

__“The hot shepherd fic makes you a shepherd expert?”_ _

__“A hot shepherd expert. Serious question time.”_ _

__It is almost never Serious Question Time when Eames says that. Arthur puts his head down on Eames’s chest and says, “Okay,” fully prepared for a question like, _Would you rather be eaten alive or burned at the stake?__ _

__Eames says, “Do you think I can turn some of the house into a chocolate garden?”_ _

__“I feel like it would attract cockroaches,” Arthur answers._ _

__“That is the least whimsical answer to a chocolate garden proposal ever given,” notes Eames. “How do you think Willy Wonka kept out the cockroaches?”_ _

__“He probably made his Oompa Loompas do it for him. And I think we should hesitate to fashion our lives after Willy Wonka,” Arthur suggests._ _

__“Help. Murder. Police,” quotes Eames._ _

__Arthur counters by lifting his head to look down at Eames and asking, “Do you want to have your cake?”_ _

__Eames smiles up at him sunnily, looking delighted. “Did you bake the cake?”_ _

__Arthur says smugly, “No.”_ _

__Eames blinks. Then he says sternly, “Don’t tease me like that. Did you make me cake batter?”_ _

__“ _A_ cake batter,” Arthur says. “A cake batter that’s safe to eat raw.” _ _

__“Darling, have I mentioned how much I bloody love you?” Eames says, and kisses him senseless._ _


	60. Chapter 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am unsure how to fix the chapter numbering so we're just going to have to put up with it until I can figure it out. 
> 
> FWIW, I actually love the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka (so much that I refused to see the Johnny Depp version because how could it improve on Wilder's Wonka?). I think it's an eminently quotable movie and I reference it all the time; but also I'm on Arthur's side and think Willy Wonka is a really weird and frequently creepy dude. My personal theory on Willy Wonka is that Charlie was his illegitimate son and he orchestrated the whole thing so he could meet his kid and leave the factory to him. I enjoy this theory very much. But, because Arthur's father abandoned him when he was a baby in this 'verse, it seemed out-of-character for him to just casually bring up an absent father figure like that, so I couldn't add that to Arthur's reaction.
> 
> Oh! And thank you to pureimaginatrix for the idea of the no-bake cake that Arthur makes for Eames. It's actually cookie dough, not cake batter, but hey, Eames is okay with it. Arthur uses this recipe: https://aloha.com/shop/recipes/desserts/two-step-triple-chocolate-brownie-bites?rs_oid=92371862383763&utm_source=aloha&utm_medium=kitchen&utm_term=recipe_20150301&utm_content=chocolate_browniebites&utm_campaign=aloha-kitchen

The cake batter is vegan, and Arthur starts to explain about the lack of bacterial concerns but Eames just says, “It’s chocolate? Fantastic,” and looks about to dig into it, so that Arthur has to jump in and say, “Wait, wait, candles!” 

He’s molded the batter into a flattish blob shape and he sticks a few candles haphazardly in. 

Eames says, “This isn’t necessary.” 

Arthur says, “It’s bad luck not to have candles on your birthday cake.” 

“Birthday cake batter,” Eames corrects. “And since when are you superstitious? I thought you believed in things like science and bacteria.” 

“Eames, I don’t have to ‘believe in’ bacteria. Bacteria just exists. There you go, blow them out.” He gestures to the flickering candles he’s just lit. 

Eames shakes his head. “Bad luck to blow out birthday candles without being sung to.”

“You’ve made that up just now.” 

“Darling, you wound me, I don’t just ‘make things up.’ And you just made up the thing about having to have candles on your cake in the first place.”

“Fine,” says Arthur, and dutifully sings _Happy Birthday_ to Eames, and Eames gives him his kid-at-Christmas look in response and closes his eyes dramatically to wish before blowing out his candles with a flourish. 

Arthur parcels out portions of batter onto plates. Eames sits on the kitchen counter to eat. Arthur sits on the chair at the island like a normal adult human being but doesn’t say anything to Eames because it is, after all, Eames’s birthday. Instead he asks Eames about the village gossip he learned from his parents that morning and Eames cheerfully relays all the drama. Arthur used to be alarmed by all of the drama that happens Eames’s tiny village, but he’s since learned that most of the drama is manufactured because everyone in the village apparently seems to really enjoy having something to talk about. 

Eames eats far too much batter and complains, “I can never move again.” 

“Sad for you,” remarks Arthur, carrying their plates to the dishwasher, “because the rest of your gift is in our bedroom.” 

“The bedroom seems very far away,” notes Eames. “Perhaps I could have a kitchen fuck for my birthday?” 

“No,” says Arthur, “but I will let you just lie there like a beached whale while I do all the work.”

“Darling, you make me sound so dreadfully sexy, what a lucky fellow you are.” 

“What I tell myself constantly,” Arthur rejoins lightly, but he means it and they both know it so Arthur punctuates the statement with a quick brush of a kiss to Eames’s mouth on his way past him. 

Eventually Eames follows him to the bedroom and Arthur is ready on the bed when he gets there, sitting cross-legged on the silky, embroidered bedspread that Eames had specially commissioned for them and whose cost Arthur has always been horrified to ask about given how they treat it. He has his Eames’s Birthday Binder on his lap and his laptop next to him and he is _not being nervous_.

Eames looks surprised as he settles opposite him on the bed, mirroring his position. “What’s this? A rather unconventional seduction scene?”

“This is your actual gift,” Arthur says, patting the binder in his lap. 

“I thought all of today was my gift,” says Eames, sounding confused. 

“Well, yes, but all of today was just, you know, setting the scene, I guess. This is the actual gift.” Arthur hands it across and tries not to hold his breath as Eames opens it. 

Eames doesn’t say anything for a few long moments. He flips through the pages, studying the blueprints and renderings carefully, skimming through the engineers’ reports. Finally he says slowly, “Darling…” 

“So there’s several proposals in there,” Arthur explains into Eames’s trailed off silence. “I talked to lots of different architects and contractors and engineers. Even a couple of designers. I figured you’d want to really design all of it yourself but I wanted to give everyone an idea of how I thought you might want it to work, to make sure you could do it. I thought you could pick the team you preferred and, you know, get it done.” 

Eames looks up at Arthur, then down at the binder again, then up at Arthur. Then he says, “Can I just clarify? Is this about making the hallways into rivers?” 

“ _Kind of_ rivers,” Arthur says. “We can’t have actual rivers because we don’t live in an actual forest.” 

“Darling, did you get me river hallways for my birthday?” 

“I got you proposals on river hallways. I’ll pay for all of it, of course, and so yes, eventually, I will get you river hallways.” 

“And you’re okay with river hallways?” Eames looks almost breathless with anticipation over this. 

Arthur smiles. Because he knows Eames’s looks—all of them, really—and Eames usually looks at him like he’s delighted with him, but this particular look is that look of overwhelmed jubilation he wears in only very certain situations. It is not an everyday look. It is exactly what Arthur was going for, and he kind of wants to throw open their bedroom window and shout to the city around them, _Nailed it!_

But instead he says the speech he’d prepared so carefully. He says, “You’re going to say that none of this was necessary and you know how much I love you but sometimes I think you can’t possibly. And you’re so very good with all of this stuff, you’re just naturally over-the-top and effusive, and I know that I’m not. So yes. I want the river hallways. Because every time you walk through the river hallways, I want you to remember that I don’t say it all the time but I love you in the same grand epic-poetry way that you’re always saying you love me. I love you that way, but I don’t have the words like you. So instead I give you river hallways.” 

“ _Darling_ ,” says Eames. “ _River hallways_. How long were you working on this?” 

“A long time. I was terrified you’d figure it out. You are, after all, much more than just a pretty face.” 

Eames says indifferently, “Mmm,” busy flipping through the binder again. “It’s clever, to think of just covering an entire river with PlexiGlass or something like that, but I’m very taken with the idea of making it open, and we could have goldfish and stuff, and we’d have to step from stone to stone. Would that bother you?” 

“No, it wouldn’t bother me,” Arthur says, because really he thinks very little could bother him as long as he has Eames. Eames looks so engrossed in the binder that Arthur slides the laptop over to the nightstand. 

Which is of course when Eames says, “What’s the laptop for?” 

“Oh,” says Arthur uncertainly, glancing over at him. 

“You went to the trouble of having it out, and you never do anything without a point,” Eames reasons. 

“Yeah. There’s another gift for you, on the laptop, but you’re distracted by the river hallways, so it can wait.” 

“No, the river hallways can wait,” Eames says firmly, putting the binder on his nightstand. “In fact, we’ll be talking about river hallways for a while, given how enormous a project it’s going to be. So what do you have for me on your laptop? Your computer laptop, not your actual laptop, I already know what you have for me there.” Eames leers at him. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Fucking Christ, your _terrible lines_.”

“That’s the kind of grand epic-poetry proclamation of love you’re talking about, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” deadpans Arthur. “You’ve got me. I have a weakness for all of your godawful puns and vaguely alarming double entendres.” 

“I knew it. The way to your heart: our special sex code.” 

“Do you want to know what the last part of your gift is, or do you want to listen to the sound of your own voice?” asks Arthur primly. 

Eames pretends to consider. “That’s a tough one.” 

“Asshole,” Arthur says, and shoves him a little bit. 

Eames grins and says, “How many parts is your birthday gift to me, darling? This is getting ridiculous.” 

“It’s one day a year when I spoil you like this, so don’t get carried away,” Arthur says, feeling a bit embarrassed and defensive. “And it’s been a tough few weeks so I thought we both deserved some spoiling.” 

“So you mean we’re not going to do this every Thursday?” asks Eames, sounding disappointed. 

“No,” says Arthur, even though he’s well aware that he would, if Eames asked for it, if Eames said he wanted it. “This is the last part of the gift.” He pulls his laptop over, powers it up. “And it’s absurd and if you mock me at all, for even one second, it ends, do you understand?” 

“Yes,” Eames says, slow and solemn, eyeing him curiously. 

Arthur navigates through his files and opens the one he wants and clears his throat and takes a breath and then forces himself to start to read. “Once upon a time there was a very hot shepherd named Eames. Eames was the kind of shepherd who wore really garish sheepskins that he dyed very ugly colors, but he still managed to look hot because he was annoying like that.”

“Darling,” Eames interrupts in a low voice, “did you write me fanfiction?” 

Arthur keeps reading, refusing to look up at him. If he looks up at him he’ll lose his nerve and never go back to reading. “One day Eames was out in the fields with his flock of sheep, complaining to the sheep about how lonely he was. ‘Woe is me,’ said Eames the hot shepherd to his sheep. ‘For I have no companion, even though I’m very attractive and have a mouth that should be in porn flicks, once porn flicks are invented. I have, alas, been born several centuries too early, and all I have is you sheep. But not like that.’ ‘Baa,’ said Eames’s sheep.” 

Arthur chances a glance up at Eames. He is listening raptly, gray-green-blue eyes wide with an expression Arthur can’t quite read. Arthur hesitates and says, “Do you want me to go on?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Eames says immediately.

“It’s not very good,” Arthur warns him. 

“It is _spectacular_ ,” Eames assures him. “Please read me more, darling.” 

Arthur can’t really say no to the look Eames gives him then so he reads more. “While Eames was complaining to his sheep, another shepherd came up over the hill in the distance. Eames was surprised, because he knew of no other shepherds in the area. But because he was lonely, he was very excited to have a visitor.” 

“Is the other shepherd you?” Eames asks eagerly. 

“Shh,” says Arthur. “That’s a spoiler.” 

“I bet it’s you,” Eames says confidently. 

“Eames stood and jumped up and down and waved his hands over his head and did anything he could think of to catch the attention of the other shepherd. ‘Hello!’ he shouted. ‘Over here! Hello!’ The other shepherd approached slowly. His sheepskin was a normal color and Eames thought that he’d have to add some excitement to this poor shepherd’s life. ‘Hello,’ called Eames, when the other shepherd was close enough. ‘I’m glad you saw me!’ ‘You were very hard to miss,’ the other shepherd pointed out.” 

“He’s definitely you,” says Eames. 

Arthur keeps reading. “‘We don’t get a lot of visitors,’ Eames said. ‘Where is your flock?’ ‘I have lost my flock,’ said the other shepherd. ‘Which doesn’t mean I’m not a good shepherd, because I’m actually a really good shepherd. Is your staff bedazzled?’ ‘Are we already talking about my staff?’ asked Eames, and did the eyebrow-waggling thing that he was pretty sure was very attractive. ‘Jesus Christ, I mean your actual shepherd staff,’ said the other shepherd. ‘Oh,’ said Eames. ‘Yes, it’s bedazzled. Do you like it?’ ‘Yes, actually,’ said the other shepherd. ‘I think I am going to like everything about you.’ ‘I hope so,’ said Eames. ‘Especially my non-bedazzled staff.’ ‘Do you have any olive oil available?’ asked the other shepherd.” 

“Wait,” cuts in Eames. “Already? We’re not even going to exchange names first?” 

“The other shepherd is into hot anonymous shepherd sex,” Arthur explains. 

“Does he just go around fucking all the shepherds he meets?” Eames frowns. 

“I don’t know,” says Arthur. “Probably.” At the look on Eames’s face, Arthur adds, “But obviously you’re the best.” 

Eames says wonderingly, “You wrote me fanfiction.” 

“I don’t know what the fuck I did,” says Arthur, embarrassed. 

“Does it go on from there?” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “Do you want the rest?” 

“Later,” Eames says, and shuts the laptop and takes it off of Arthur’s lap. “Right now I want to write my own fanfiction.” Eames tips Arthur back, balances his weight over him, pressing just enough so Arthur can feel the bulk of him, because he knows that Arthur loves that about Eames, loves to be a little crushed by him, in the right circumstances. 

“Oh?” says Arthur, lifting an eyebrow at him. 

“‘Are we already leaping right to olive oil?’ asked hot shepherd Eames.” Eames pins Arthur’s hands on either side of his head. “‘Yes,’ said the other shepherd. ‘In fact, I’m already ready to go. I know how to get this going fast, I’ve done it with lots of other shepherds. I kind of own my own shepherd sex club.’” Eames lets go of Arthur’s hands, but Arthur keeps them up by his head, against the mattress, because he’s used to this game. Eames pushes his t-shirt up so he can spread his hands over Arthur’s ribcage, squeezing gently around the delicate up-and-down of Arthur’s breathing, over the flutter of Arthur’s heartbeat. 

“What the fuck happens at a shepherd sex club?” asks Arthur. 

“Darling, sex is the same for everyone,” Eames answers seriously, and slides down Arthur’s body, undoing Arthur’s jeans as he goes. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story?” 

“I’ll take other things, if you’re offering,” suggests Arthur. 

Eames grins at him and pulls off his jeans and underwear in one fluid motion. Arthur kicks to get them all the way off. “‘Wow,’ said Eames the hot shepherd. ‘Why have I never heard of this shepherd sex club?’ ‘It’s very exclusive. Have you ever heard of the famous celebrity shepherd Sebastian Stan? He’s a member.’ ‘Talking of members,’ said Eames, and waggled his eyebrows again.” Eames pauses in his story to pay some attention to Arthur’s non-fictional member. Arthur arches up into him, because if Eames wants him to stay still, Eames will tell him. 

Eames pulls off, and Arthur lets himself pant, and Eames mumbles into Arthur’s abdomen, even as Arthur can feel him fumbling at the nightstand for the lube, “‘What’s this you were saying about olive oil?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ the other shepherd said. ‘I always travel with olive oil.’ ‘I bet you’d be a Boy Scout,’ said Eames, ‘if you’d lived in the right time.’” 

Eames is teasing now, deliberately giving Arthur less than he knows Arthur can take, and Arthur drops his head back against his pillow and dig his heels in to get some leverage against him. His hands twitch to reach for Eames, but Eames sends a hand up, pressing one of Arthur’s hands against the mattress again, and Arthur gets the message. 

“At my shepherd sex club,” Arthur says, through tearing breath, “there are no obnoxious teases allowed.”

Eames flashes him the feral, filthy grin he has when he knows he’s driving Arthur crazy and he plans to keep doing it for a while. He says, “Who says I’m a tease?” and shifts to hover over Arthur. He looks down at him for a long moment, and Arthur looks back, up into Eames’s pupil-dilated eyes. Eames says, “Don’t I always deliver?” and leans down to give Arthur an incredibly tender kiss considering that he also thrusts hard into him at the same moment. 

Arthur scrambles a little bit, shifting to get their angle right, and Eames’s thrusts are long, slow, infuriating drags, and when Arthur meets them just the right way, they make his breath catch until he’s practically light-headed and clawing to get out of his own skin. 

“Perfect,” Eames breathes into Arthur’s shoulder, his breaths harsh and short, in contrast to the languor of his rhythm. “Perfect, perfect.” 

“Fucking tease,” Arthur accuses breathlessly, his hands curled into fists so tight he can feel the bite of his own nails against his palms. 

“‘But,’ said Eames the hot shepherd, ‘don’t you think we should know each other’s names?’” gasps Eames against Arthur’s skin. 

“Arthur,” Arthur says, turning his head blindly so he can close his teeth around Eames’s ear, brush his tongue along the sweat curling Eames’s hair along his hairline. “But you should always call me ‘darling.’”

Eames lifts his head. He uncurls Arthur’s fists and settles his hands against his, threads their fingers together. His hair is damp and dark against his forehead and his eyes are hot and dark as they look down at Arthur and his face is flushed and his lips are wet and swollen and he leans down and kisses Arthur and keeps their hands clasped together as he tips them over the edge.


	61. Chapter 61

Arthur wakes to find Eames laying on the other side of the bed watching him. 

“Hello,” Arthur says, stretching luxuriously and letting his eyes droop closed again. “Are you just lying there watching me sleep? Is this some new creepy thing you’re doing these days?” 

“Not new,” Eames answers. “I used to do this all the time, when we first got together.” 

Arthur, curious, opens his eyes. Eames looks serious, not at all joking. “Did you really?” 

“I used to think you might disappear while I slept. That maybe I’d been dreaming you all along. That I’d wake to no one next to me.” Eames smiles wryly. It’s an unusual look for him, the self-deprecating look. “Or Alec, I suppose.” 

“That would be a nightmare,” Arthur says. “If this is a dream, we can just stay in it for a while. I’m fine with that.” 

Eames chuckles, then says, “Thank you,” and reaches out to push Arthur’s hair off his forehead. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, around a yawn. “Happy birthday.” 

Eames shakes his head. “No, I’m not thanking you for yesterday. Thank you for giving me a second chance. Thank you for thinking I deserved one.” 

Arthur tries to think of what he can say in response to that. _There was never any question I was giving you a second chance. I’d give you a third and a fourth and a fifth and a millionth_ , is probably accurate but also possibly alarming. Instead he says, “You’ve turned out pretty good so far.” 

Eames grins. “Think you’ll keep me?” 

“So far,” Arthur reiterates noncommittally, aware that it’s ridiculous to pretend to be noncommittal when he just went ridiculously overboard with birthday gifts. 

Eames keeps grinning as he kisses him. And Arthur thinks he might suggest shower sex, but when Eames pulls back he says, “What do you think about water lilies in the river hallways?” 

Arthur smiles and says, “Knock yourself out.” 

***

Eames has cake batter for breakfast. Arthur finds him in their kitchen, naked, eating the cake batter with a spoon and saying into his phone, “Yes, I understand what you’re saying but what if we could develop a system where we could change the color of the water for different occasions? Or maybe for different hallways!” 

Arthur makes himself toast and a cup of coffee, listening idly to Eames’s increasingly over-the-top ideas about the river hallways. He’s not overly alarmed: Eames designs in flights of fancies, it’s true, but Eames has to come back to Earth when he realizes he can’t eliminate gravity. Or, at least, he hasn’t found a way to eliminate gravity _yet_. Arthur grabs the paper and retreats with his coffee to his office, kissing Eames’s head and mouthing to him, _Get dressed_ on his way out. 

Arthur curls up in his squashy chair, reading the paper front to back and then focusing in on the real estate listings, making notes in his spreadsheets, corresponding with a few clients.

Eames wanders in and says, “Darling, what do you think about—”

Arthur says firmly, “Do not sit down, turn around, take a shower, get dressed, then come back.” 

Eames looks a little crestfallen but he retreats and then returns later in what counts as “dressed” for him (which means some kind of terribly novelty t-shirt referencing something Arthur doesn’t even understand, with a frayed hem, that Arthur has tried to convince him to throw out now without success for several months, and a pair of jeans worn so thin in the ass that he can’t go outside in them, although Arthur has, for obvious reasons, less of an issue with the jeans). 

“Darling,” he says, throwing himself upon Arthur’s couch, and Arthur chalks up a small victory for the sanitary conditions of their household. “What do you think about frogs? They might be a step too far, yes?” 

“I think they’d keep us up at night and get all over the house.” 

“I thought so,” Eames sighs sadly. “I am considering semi-precious jewels in with the river rocks. Just every so often. I’ll cover the extra cost.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arthur says. “It’s your birthday gift. I’m paying.” 

“Darling, what if I wanted to line the river rocks with platinum?” 

“I’d worry about your taste and probably leave you,” Arthur replies. “But I’d still pay for the fucking thing.” 

Eames grins at him. Then he says, “Are you working?” 

“Yes. Very diligently. Why?” 

“Because one of the engineers in your binder that you gave me mentioned to me that we had a good show last night, and that reminded me that we still haven’t watched the episode.” 

“Fuck,” says Arthur. “I completely forgot about…all of that.” Which is true. He had wanted them to have a day just for them but he’s truly pleased at how well it worked, at how easily they both just stopped worrying about _Next Big Thing_ and Alec Hart and the Internet. 

“Me, too. Shall we watch over lunch?” 

“What are you having for lunch?” 

“Cake batter,” Eames answers. 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. 

“I’ve discovered if you mix some Marmite into the cake batter it—”

“Oh, my God,” interjects Arthur, feeling queasy. 

Eames laughs. “Oh, relax, I’m joking.” 

“Now that I know what Marmite actually tastes like, I’m discovering I have this terrible gustatory flashback every time you mention it. It’s like post-Marmite stress disorder.” 

“So you don’t want any Marmite on toast for lunch?” Eames asks with mock gravity. “I just want to clarify.” 

“Go,” Arthur says, and flings a pen at Eames’s head. “I’ll meet you when I’m done with this e-mail I’m working on.”

Eames retrieves the pen from the floor and tosses it back to Arthur, then winks at him as he leaves.


	62. Chapter 62

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay but at least it's a nice long chapter.

Eames is already sprawled on the living room couch with the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket when Arthur finishes scrounging up a lunch of carrots and celery and hummus. 

“Roughly seven million people on Twitter have wished me happy birthday,” he informs Arthur, not looking up from his phone. 

“Good,” says Arthur, putting his tray of vegetables and hummus on the coffee table. “Look, I made us lunch.” 

Eames glances at the tray. “There’s green on that plate. And no cake batter.” 

“I know,” says Arthur, settling onto the couch under his end of the blanket. “It’s almost like we’re grown-ups.” 

“I told everyone we celebrated yesterday by having lots of sex and writing fanfiction together.” 

“Armes for shepherd roleplaying?” drawls Arthur. 

“Don’t mention the shepherd roleplaying, you’ll distract me and we’ll never watch this episode.” 

“Press play,” Arthur commands him, but tickles his toes up Eames’s inseam to lessen its harshness. 

He checks his phone to find that Eames’s real tweet about his birthday was just, _Thank you for the birthday wishes! Arthur spoiled me all day. He made me cake batter! #eames4gettingold #arthur4safecakebatter_

Arthur tweets instead, _#eames4gettingbetterwithage_ and then scrolls backward through his tag to get back in the timeline to the beginning of the episode, so that as the previously-scenes play on the television, he is looking at the gif of him sticking his tongue down Eames’s throat, attached to a tweet reading _Let’s not forget the most important thing to happen last episode. #arthur4everything #armes4eva #illbeinmybunk_

Arthur scrolls through Twitter, taking note that someone started the hashtag #happybirthdayeames, and it’s full of suggestions for Eames-ian gifts. 

_What do designers get for their birthdays? Paint colors named after them? #happybirthdayeames_

_Arthur, buy the man some properly tailored pants! #happybirthdayeames_

_I bet they had a special birthday orgy at the sex club. #happybirthdayeames_

_I’m hoping Arthur just wrapped up himself. #happybirthdayeames #armes4eva_

_How come Eames only gets hotter as he gets older? Pretty sure that’s not how it’s working for me. #happybirthdayeames_

_Alec feels Eames’s birthday *here.* #happybirthdayeames_ With a gif of Alec solemnly laying his hand over his heart. 

Arthur snorts and looks up at the screen, where there is a shot of him and Eames cuddling in the corner. Arthur knows they were discussing what to do about the Ariadne issue, but it really does look like they’re just being grossly over-the-top with some flirting. 

Mal shouts at them to stop being in love and Eames gives his line about never stopping being in love and Arthur supposes this corresponds to the point in this Twitter timeline when all of the tweets dissolved into _awwwwww, Eames is THE BEST #armes4eva_. 

The show’s narrator explains how last week’s victor is being announced now that the Internet voting results are in. Eames gives his little speech and awards the victory to Gon and there’s really a very nice reaction shot of Arthur looking genuinely delighted and not as awkward as he could have when Gon pulls him into a hug. 

The Internet seems to mostly agree with the decision, although there is some support for Ariadne. 

_I knew #teamarthur4everything would pull it off!_

_Gon’s design was the best. He totally deserved it. #teamgon_

_Gon had a good design but Ariadne did a MAZE. A CLOSET MAZE. Because HER NAME IS ARIADNE? GET IT. #teamariadne #greekmythologyftw_

One tweet gives Arthur pause: 

_Gon and Arthur worked together the best. Is Arthur just really good at inspiring designers or what???_

“Hey,” Arthur says, wiggling his toes under Eames’s thigh. 

Eames looks away from the screen, where Alec is droning on and on about whatever he found it necessary to talk about before announcing Maria’s elimination. “Yeah.” 

“Do you find me inspiring?” 

“Very inspiring,” Eames says, and leers at him. 

“Not like that. As a designer.”

“Yes,” Eames answers simply. “You have a very expressive face, and it’s lovely when you like something. You positively light up. That’s what I design for on the show: it’s not for the clients as much as it’s for you. I fell into that early on, and I knew I was in trouble as soon as I realized what I was doing.”

Arthur frowns thoughtfully. “You don’t think Gon has a crush on me, do you?”

“I think every intelligent person should have a crush on you, but he doesn’t seem inappropriate to me. Do you even have the right parts for him?” 

“It could be an _intellectual_ crush,” Arthur says. 

“I think someone can want to make you happy without necessarily falling in love with you. It just happened that one was a symptom of the other for me, but I don’t think it has to be.” 

Arthur lets it drop—especially because the thought never occurred to him until the Internet put it in his head—and scrolls through a number of tweets complaining about Alec’s speech. 

_What is he even talking about? #shutalecup_

_Whyyyyyyy is he still taaaaaaaalking? #shutalecup_

_While Alec has been talking, children have been born and started school. #shutalecup_

_How did we get on the topic of the Bubonic Plague? #shutalecup_

_He’s not even right with what he’s saying, just fyi. #doyourhomeworkalec_

_I’m fascinated by how he never moves his head. Are we sure he’s real? #alec4statue #orrobot_

When Eames interrupts, the Internet rejoices. 

_FINALLY #eamesftw_

_JUST TELL US WHO GET ELIMINATED, JESUS CHRIST._

So of course the show cuts to a commercial. The Internet says _Nooooooooooooooo_ and _Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh_. Eames fast-forwards them through the commercials and on the other end of it Alec puts his hand over his heart and announces Maria’s name. 

Much as with Gon, most of the Internet seems to agree that maybe Maria’s design wasn’t disturbing but it was pretty boring:

_Who knows? Misty Rainbow might get a challenge more to her liking next time and do something interesting. Maria was just dull._

_I fear for what some of #teamalec will do. Where do you go after a vale of tears?_

_You can see Arthur’s thinly disguised panic at ongoing dead sheep murals. #arthur4allreactiongifsever_

_Poor Maria. Eames is right, she seemed nice. But her design was so boring I just couldn’t vote for her!_

_“The Internet would literally rather vote for a vale of tears and sheep with bleeding eyes than vote for something dull.” #eames4truthtelling_

Maria gets to give her exit interview, thanking the show for an amazing time and Eames for being a great coach and vowing to be better at taking risks in the future. Then the episode shifts back to Arthur, who reads out the challenge quickly. They leave in Eames’s line about “eight sex dungeons and one excellent library”—which gets appreciation from the Internet—and then the episode cuts to a heavily edited version of the conversation about having favorite contestants and the show needing more fraternizing. The editing does make it look like it was Eames’s idea to host a party at their house, although they also leave in Alec’s weird awkwardness of saying “Good talk” and almost reaching for Arthur. Arthur’s face says _touch me and die_ , so he now knows why Alec changed his mind about touching him. 

“The number of death glares you give him every episode,” Eames remarks as the show shifts into another commercial. “How is he still alive?”

“He’s clearly immortal,” grumbles Arthur. “You clearly fucked some immortal being who’s going to put a hex on me and curse me for all eternity.” 

“ _Or_ maybe being fucked by me causes immortality. This is an excellent idea and I would read that fic.”

“Your parents referred to Alec as ‘frolicking’ around us. Do you think he frolics?” 

“I think he skulks,” says Eames. 

“Exactly! He glowers.” 

“He slithers.” 

“He smarms. If that’s not a word, it should be.” 

“Agreed,” says Eames.

“I’m thinking of prohibiting hats from our viewing party,” remarks Arthur. 

Eames snorts. “I think we should make hats required. If everyone has a hat, Alec can’t stand out.” 

“Oh, I like that idea,” says Arthur. “Hats galore.” 

“Prizes for the most creative hat.” 

“What’s the prize?” 

“Sex club membership.” 

“Sold,” Arthur says. “Inform Sebastian Stan.” 

The episode returns, and they follow the contestants as they come up with their designs. Trizz explains that he is making a sex dungeon “because everyone knows that Arthur’s really into kinky (beep) like that.” 

“Oh, fuck,” Arthur says, and wants to sink into the ground. “My _mother_ watches this show.” 

“Shall I ring her and clarify for her? ‘Don’t worry, your son is just kinky enough to be delightful.’”

“No,” Arthur says.

“Twitter has a lot of speculation about what exactly it is you’re into,” notes Eames, scrolling along on his phone. 

“I don’t want to know,” groans Arthur. 

“Oddly, none of them are guessing that you write hot fanfiction on the side.” 

“I don’t,” says Arthur. “That was a one-off.” 

Eames isn’t paying attention. Eames tilts his head at his phone and says, “This is—oh, my. This is illuminating and I am getting new ideas.” Eames sends Arthur a combination wink-and-leer. 

Arthur tweets, _I DON’T HAVE A SEX DUNGEON._

Eames tweets, _If anybody knows how to get ahold of Sebastian Stan, can you let me know asap? #sexclubbusiness #nothingtoseehere_

Arthur tweets, _IF I HAD A SEX DUNGEON, I WOULDN’T INVITE EAMES TO IT._

Eames tweets, _Still looking for Sebastian Stan…_ , giggling with glee over his cleverness. 

Arthur sighs and says, “Fine, fine, you can have the last word.” 

“Darling, I will never stop finding it marvelous that people think you have a sex dungeon. I wish to bask forever in your reflected glory. Like the moon and the sun.” 

On the show, Trizz is explaining to Ariadne that he’s having trouble getting his murals anatomically correct.

“Your sex murals?” Ariadne is clarifying, sipping a smoothie. 

“Yeah. You’re close to Arthur, right? What are his sexual tastes?” 

“I don’t know that,” Ariadne says, looking horrified. She looks straight at the camera and says again, “I really, really don’t know that.” 

“He likes men, though, right?” muses Trizz. 

Ariadne says, “He’s dating a man.” 

“Right, and probably they have sex.” 

“Probably,” says Ariadne, now beet-red. “I’d assume they do. Oh, my God. Can I go? I have to go.” 

Ariadne scurries off-screen. 

Arthur says, “When the fuck did this show become entirely about my sex life?” 

Eames is tapping away on his phone. 

Arthur says, experiencing dread, “What are you telling people about our sex life?” 

Eames shows Arthur the tweet. _I have authority to expose Arthur’s sexual tastes._ He’s attached a photo of himself to the tweet. 

“Fine,” Arthur says. “You can tweet that.” 

Arthur sneaks a glance at the old Twitter timeline he’s pulled up, trying to ascertain where they are in it. He scrolls through a bunch of speculation about his sex dungeon and his relationship with Sebastian Stan and the sexiest way to depict a threesome. _THIS HOME DESIGN SHOW IS MORE ABOUT SEX THAN SEX AND THE CITY EVER WAS_ , proclaims one tweet, in obvious glee. Arthur favorites that one. 

Misty Rainbow comes into her own as she decorates her meditation room. She comes across as very charming and sweet, actually. 

Eames says, “I just want to reiterate: She designed bleeding sheep murals last week, right?” 

“Consumerism makes her very angry,” replies Arthur. 

All of the contestants seem to love Jess’s speakeasy and there’s footage of them sitting around getting drunk with each other. They seem to get along, and Arthur thinks that it bodes well for their upcoming party. They all tease Gon about his bathroom design, but Gon insists that it’s going to be a hit. Ariadne, meanwhile, bemoans the fact that she didn’t have enough time to add a whole hot chocolate bar to her room. 

“Hot chocolate bar,” says Arthur. “I want a hot chocolate bar.” He nudges Eames’s thigh, wiggling his toes again. 

“Noted,” says Eames. 

Arthur scrolls through the Twitter timeline so he can take note of the moment the judging begins. He can tell because the tweets become things like _ARTHUR’S FACE_ and _THIS IS PRICELESS_ and _Can we have Arthur’s face on everything? Arthur’s face should be everywhere. THE WORLD NEEDS THIS._ and _TRIZZ MADE ARTHUR CLIMB UP A LADDER. #thankyoutrizz_

Eames makes his terrible double entendres about Trizz’s sex lair and all of them spend a little while peering closely at pornographic murals and the Internet generally thinks everything about this is the best thing to have ever happened in the history of time, period. 

Twitter also wants to know if the party is going to be filmed for the show. _Will we get to see the sex club, too??_

“Do people really think they’re going to get to see a sex club when they get here?” Arthur asks. 

“Probably,” says Eames dismissively. 

“But we don’t have a sex club, Eames. You remember that, right? We’re not running a secret sex club somewhere.” 

“Unless you count our bedroom.” 

“We’re not showing people our bedroom,” says Arthur sharply. 

Eames looks at him and says, “Darling. I know that. I would never,” and closes a comforting hand over Arthur’s ankle underneath the blanket, rubbing his thumb in a soothing circle.

It does make Arthur calm down and remember that Eames would never cross that line. 

“Don’t worry about the sex club thing,” Eames says. “Everyone knows it’s just an elaborate joke. Well, everyone but Alec, at least.”

Arthur on the television raises issues about the lack of beds or other comfortable surfaces. 

_Trust Arthur to be worrying about the fuckery logistics. #arthur4bestsexclubmanager_

_You can count on Arthur to be practical, even when it comes to sex._

_Why did they beep out Arthur saying “fuck”? DON’T THEY WANT US TO BE HAPPY? #arthur4swearing_

_Oh, they aired it, Eames. Thank God. #nbt4inappropriateconversations_

_Can I vote for Trizz entirely on the basis on him giving us this wonder?_

_I feel like Arthur would be a lovely sexual partner. Always worried about your comfort._

“Oh, God,” says Arthur, and closes Twitter. 

But then, on the episode, Arthur says, “Sometimes it’s just sex. Just two people and the proper parts and no deeper meaning whatsoever,” and there’s a reaction shot of Alec’s face, and Arthur says, “You don’t want to argue with me about this,” and there’s another reaction shot of Alec’s face, and Arthur can’t help it. He opens up Twitter again because he wants to know what people are saying. 

_Oh, wow. Need some ice for that burn, Alec? #arthur4everything_

_OMG. Did Arthur just say that? Have I died and gone to heaven? #arthur4everything_

_GET HIM, ARTHUR. #arthur4everything_

_Tell me I’m not the only one who blacked out when Arthur got all growly and commanding there. I may have actually climaxed. #arthur4everything_

Misty Rainbow’s room results in less capslock and less discussion of Arthur and sex. Arthur is happy about that. Mainly the Internet finds her room sweet and figuratively punches the air with joy when she says Alec’s soul is tortured. 

When they get to Jess’s room, Jess explains how it’s for the people you really, really like, and Arthur on TV says, “And everyone else wonders where the good party is?” 

Arthur in real life says, “We should do that for our viewing party.” 

“What,” says Eames, “have Alec in a room all by himself, wondering where everyone else is?” 

“Alec would be so busy speechifying, I bet it would take him hours to realize that he’s alone in the room,” Arthur replies. 

On the television, Eames starts mixing martinis and makes his snide remark about Alec’s hat, which leads to Alec snapping at him, and Twitter collectively freaks out at the hint of drama. 

When they move on to Scott’s space, Arthur makes his barb to Alec about how people “just stick everything on the Internet and pretend that it’s true.” _Arthur is *on fire* this episode. #arthur4everything_ , says the Internet, and _I think Arthur’s lost his patience with Alec. He’s not playing anymore. #arthur4everything_. Arthur doesn’t think he was ever playing but he does think it’s true that he’s reached the end of his capacity to deal with Alec. His irritated distaste is constantly seething toward the surface, obvious on Arthur’s face in every reaction shot. 

“Jesus,” says Arthur, “it looks like I hate him.” 

“You’re justified,” Eames says, his hand under the blanket rubbing absently up Arthur’s calf. 

Arthur considers, watching themselves move through Jevin’s safe without really paying attention. They’re talking about the room, and Arthur is caught suddenly by the way Eames looks at him, bright and open and fond. Eames almost always looks at him that way, a way he looks at no one else, but Arthur has stopped really registering it. But now he looks at the way Eames looks at him and he says, “I don’t really hate him. I feel bad for him, actually. He pushes my buttons and annoys me but at the end of the day I don’t hate him. I pity him, for having you and letting you go.” 

Eames is watching him steadily when Arthur tears his eyes away from the television. He says, “Which is probably why he so deliberately sets out to torment you. Being pitied is so much worse than being hated.” 

On the television, Arthur hears his own voice say, “There’s a sex slide in my sex club, don’t worry.” 

Arthur in real life says, “I’ve got to fucking stop talking about that sex club already.” 

Eames laughs and looks back at the television. 

Ariadne explains the purpose of her room and Eames asks if she’s read the fic with the hot shepherds. 

Twitter’s initial reaction is _…_. 

And then: _DID EAMES JUST SAY HE READS FANFICTION????_

_ALERT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. EAMES READS FIC. #eames4bnf_

_Guys, if he reads fic, do you think he writes it, too??? ‘Fess up: which of you is Eames?_

_What hot shepherd one? Who can point me to the hot shepherd one? #eames4fanficrecs_

_Do you think Eames offers beta services? #eames4beta_

“You’re a hit with the Internet,” Arthur tells him. “They all want to talk fanfic with you.” 

“I think the fanfiction genre hit its peak last night,” replies Eames. “Nowhere to go but down.” Eames pauses. “If you know what I mean.” He waggles his eyebrows. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

The Internet seems to also like Gon’s bathroom, which Arthur approves of, especially as they chose Gon’s room to win the episode. 

The Internet says, _…Why does Alec think bathrooms are pointless? This is something that needs to be further examined._ and _I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again: #getaleclaid It can only improve his attitude, right?_

When the show reveals Gon as the winner, Arthur has a tweet ready to go: _This was a tough judging decision and there were a lot of great rooms but in the end we were all won over by Gon’s vision._ Arthur knows it’s vague, but there isn’t much more Arthur can put into words about the nebulous way they judge. The episode eliminates Jevin, and the Internet doesn’t have much to say about that. 

Eames’s hand lands on Arthur’s knee. He says, “Next time we do this, we’ll have a bunch of people in the house.” 

“Can’t wait,” lies Arthur blithely. 

“Thank you for putting up with this,” Eames says, and ducks under the blanket and crawls under it up Arthur’s body, until he can poke his head out the other end of the blanket, at Arthur’s chest, now sprawling on top of him. “How can I make it up to you?” 

“Hot chocolate bar.” 

“Done.” Eames leans forward to kiss him. 

Arthur says, “And you will put your dirty laundry in the hamper for a full week.”

“Now you’re getting greedy,” Eames grins down at him. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Arthur says, but he’s laughing while he says it. 

“But an arsehole who loves you,” Eames points out, pressing smiling kisses against him. 

“You think we’re going to have sex on this couch?” 

“I was moving in that direction.” 

Arthur shakes his head. “It’s cramped and uncomfortable and trust me, I know about fuckery logistics.” 

Eames chuckles into his skin and says, “Arthur for best sex club manager.” 

“Sebastian Stan rates me ten out of ten,” Arthur says. 

“Yeah? Well, I rate you eleven out of ten. Take that, Sebastian Stan.” 

“You’ve showed him.” 

“Obviously. Sebastian Stan’s got nothing on me.” 

“Truth,” Arthur says, pulling Eames in. “Absolute truth.” 

Eames kisses him like he agrees.


	63. Chapter 63

That afternoon, Arthur forces himself to check Alec’s Twitter because the last time he neglected to check Alec’s Twitter there were all sorts of Machiavellian plots against Ariadne going on. Well. Quasi-Machiavellian. Aspiring-to-be-Machiavellian. Whatever. He checks Alec’s Twitter just to make sure there are no surprises there this time. 

There don’t seem to be any surprises. Alec’s Twitter is so dreadfully dull that Arthur doesn’t understand how he has any followers. There is some preachy thing about finding the meaning in sex and that’s the raciest it gets. Meanwhile, thinks Arthur, his Twitter is pretty much 24/7 sex dungeon talk. 

Arthur has a couple of late showings with a client and while he’s driving home he mulls over the dullness of Alec’s Twitter in his head. Maybe, Arthur thinks, he’s been unfair to Alec. Well. Not unfair. Maybe…overdramatic? And Arthur hates dramatics—okay, he loves them when he belongs to Eames, but he prides himself on not being overdramatic—so he’s slightly bewildered by his reaction. Alec has been pushing all of his buttons, yes, but it’s _stupid_ of Arthur to be overreacting as much as he has. Arthur has Eames and he has this job he loves and actually he’s turned out to be having one hell of a year, when you really stop to consider it, and he thinks of what he said to Eames while they were watching the episode, that he doesn’t hate Alec, he just pities him. He thinks it’s true, and he had been mislabeling it all along. He finds Alec annoying and trying and pathetic, yes, and he pities him, because Arthur has everything in the world he could ever want and Alec has none of that—doesn’t even seem to realize that they’re things he should be wanting—and yes, Arthur cannot comprehend him and thinks he’s an idiot but isn’t it time for Arthur to be the better person here instead of continually allowing himself to get pulled into Alec’s machinations? He’s letting Alec manipulate him and that’s incredibly unlike him and it actually troubles him how much active energy he’s invested in worrying about Alec when all along Eames had clearly never given his time with Alec a second thought and Eames is all that really matters. 

Arthur gets home to find Paul’s truck parked outside. Paul is Eames’s usual contractor, who Arthur consulted about the river hallway project. So Arthur expects to find Paul and Eames huddled together in one of the hallways but instead he finds them in the grand front room. Eames is gesturing grandly and saying, “Just there, do you see what I mean?” He spots Arthur walking across the marble expanse of the room, shoes clicking, and smiles at him. “Hello, darling. Showings go well?” 

“Yes, actually. I might nudge an offer out of them.” He accepts Eames’s kiss to the cheek and says, “Hello, Paul.” 

“Hi, Arthur,” Paul says with a little wave. 

“What’s this?” Arthur asks. “This room wasn’t the room I expected you to be renovating.” 

“We’re not renovating. We’re changing it up a little bit for the party,” explains Eames. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows. “We’re throwing a party that requires a contractor?” 

Paul shrugs a little, and Arthur interprets this as _Hey, you’re the one crazy enough to be dating him, I’m just his employee_. 

“Darling, we have a reputation to uphold. We throw great parties.” 

The remarkable thing is they kind of do have this reputation, but that’s because Eames is a visionary when it comes to having a good time; Arthur just gets pulled along for the ride. Their housewarming party involved Eames making everyone paint an enormous mural on a piece of plaster he had hauled into the house, and afterward he smashed it to pieces and turned it into a mosaic that still dots the sidewalk outside the house. Their second party involved an epic MarioKart tournament that Arthur practiced for out of sheer terror and then ended up winning on the great buoyancy of alcohol. Their third party had an astrology theme and Eames learned how to read palms and gave drunken, filthy readings to all of the guests. Their fourth party was called “Making Music” and everyone was required to play an instrument they had never played before. 

Arthur cannot imagine what Eames could possibly be planning now. 

“As long as we’re not playing MarioKart again,” says Arthur. 

“No. Although people would love it; tales are still told of your epic avoidance of blue shells.” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Tales are not told of that.” 

“Our theme is going to be ‘sex club,’” Eames informs Arthur gleefully. 

“Um,” says Arthur, and is suddenly terrified that this party is going to end in an actual orgy, and Arthur is open-minded enough to be role-playing shepherds and writing fanfiction about his own relationship but he’s not sure he really cares for an orgy and he kind of thinks Eames should have discussed that with him. Arthur glances at Paul and then says to Eames carefully, “Can we talk?”

Eames shakes his head. “Not like you’re thinking. Think of it this way: what is a sex club, at heart?” 

Arthur glances at Paul again, then says, “I think it’s a place where people have sex?” wondering if this is some sort of quiz. 

“It’s a place where people have _fun_ ,” Eames corrects him, practically bouncing on his toes. “So we are turning this room into a _playground_.”

“A…playground?” Arthur echoes. 

“You said there was a sex slide, there shall be a sex slide. Right here in fact.” Eames gestures. “Paul and his crew are going to build us one.” 

“What makes it a sex slide?” Arthur asks. 

“Oh, it’s just a regular slide.” Eames waves his hand around. “Just like we’re going to install completely regular swings. And we’re going to have see-saws, and those things that spin around, and maybe some sort of rope-climbing area, and I’m considering a sandbox, too. A place to have fun. A grown-up playground. Almost better than a sex club, but don’t tell Sebastian Stan I said that.” 

Arthur blinks. He wasn’t really expecting this, but now that Eames has proposed it, he can see it. This is how it usually goes with Eames: he comes up with a design Arthur never anticipated but that he turns out to love. 

And Eames knows how to read Arthur well enough that he’s grinning when Arthur looks back at him. “Yeah?” he says. 

“Yes.” Arthur nods and lets his own smile break through, practically feels the way his dimples dimple for Eames. “Yeah. It’s a good idea. Let’s do it.” 

“Excellent,” says Eames, and kisses Arthur’s right dimple and turns to Paul. “Seal of approval.” 

“Yeah, have at it,” Arthur tells him. “How much longer are you two working? And did either of you eat dinner?” 

“No,” Eames says. 

“Stay for dinner,” Arthur invites Paul. “I’ll order something in.” 

“Plus, Arthur made me cake batter for my birthday,” adds Eames. “There’s a bit left still, and it’s _safe_ , so Arthur will hold back his bacteria army.” 

“How can I resist a dinner invitation like that?” asks Paul. 

“Keep him a little bit in line,” Arthur says to Paul. “Don’t let him talk you into anything crazy like trapezes or something.” 

“Trapezes!” exclaims Eames. 

“No,” Arthur calls back as he heads toward the private part of the house. “They’re a huge liability!”

“No trapezes,” Arthur hears Paul say. 

Satisfied, Arthur internally debates which takeout menu to pull out of the drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to arctacuda, who, on one of our drives down South (where the billboards are either about Jesus or strip clubs), commented on an ad for "Gentleman's Playground," "Wouldn't it be awesome if that place actually *was* a playground with, like, swing sets and things?" Eames thanks you for the idea. ;-)


	64. Chapter 64

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to pureimaginatrix for the ideas for the party!

“I’ve been thinking,” Arthur says, as he pulls a t-shirt over his head to wear to bed. Eames will happily sleep naked but Arthur always manages to get cold unless Eames sleeps right up against him, throwing off furnace heat, and Eames inevitably inches away from him during the night and takes all of the blankets with him because Eames is a bit of a selfish asshole when he sleeps. So Arthur doesn’t sleep naked. 

“So have I!” Eames calls from the bathroom, where he is finishing up brushing his teeth. He emerges pulling his t-shirt up over his head. “If we add a ball pit to the party, do you think it will be seen as too much favoritism toward Ariadne?” Eames drops his t-shirt negligently to the floor. 

“Ariadne didn’t even win that challenge, though,” says Arthur, and, “Seriously, you were just _in the bathroom_ where _the hamper is located_ , why didn’t you take your t-shirt off there?” 

Eames is pushing the pillows off of their bed. “What?” he says, and gives Arthur a genuinely blank look because Arthur knows he really doesn’t spend any time thinking about laundry, no matter how much Arthur brings it up. Eames has an infinite number of really spectacular qualities and is a dream of a boyfriend otherwise, so Arthur just sighs and picks up his t-shirt and retreats to the bathroom with it. 

“Okay,” Arthur says, tossing the shirt into the hamper and coming back out into the bedroom, “so let’s talk about what I’ve been thinking about.” 

Eames, sitting up in bed, says, “If it’s trampolines, I’m way ahead of you,” and turns the tablet he has on his lap so that Arthur can see an entire Pinterest board full of trampolines. Eames has titled the board _Trampolines!!!!_

“Four exclamation points?” Arthur asks. 

“They’re trampolines, darling. Of course four exclamation points.” 

“I wasn’t thinking about trampolines,” Arthur says, and crawls into bed. 

“Hmm,” says Eames, putting the tablet aside and tipping his head at Arthur. “What were you thinking about then? Was it bouncy castles?” 

“I don’t even know what a fucking bouncy castle is,” says Arthur. 

“I know. You were thinking about shepherds, weren’t you?” Eames waggles his eyebrows at him. 

“The fact that your shorthand for sex these days is to talk about shepherds is worrying, don’t you think?” remarks Arthur. 

“Not at all,” replies Eames. “So you weren’t thinking about how frankly magnificent I am in bed?” 

“No,” says Arthur. “Believe it or not, I don’t spend every moment of my existence thinking about having sex with you.” 

“That’s really upsetting, darling,” says Eames gravely. “You’ve cut me to the quick here.” 

“Can I tell you what I’ve been thinking about?” 

“Fine. Yes. What do you think about that’s not sex with me?” 

“Alec.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Eames. “Take that back right now.” 

“No, I’m serious, I was thinking of how…I don’t know, when you said today about how much I hated him and I was thinking that I really meant it when I said I don’t hate him and I’ve been nothing but belligerent toward him, from the very beginning, and—”

“He’s been—” begins Eames hotly. 

“No, I know,” Arthur cuts him off. “He is definitely not without blame in this entire debacle. He’s been a prick this entire time, I get that. But I’ve been acting like I doubt you, or doubt us, doubt this. And I don’t. I never have. I think I gave you that impression—I think I gave everyone that impression, honestly—and that was stupid.” 

Eames props himself up on his elbow and looks down at him and says, “Darling, I never thought you doubted me. You just need your processing time.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur, and he knows he’s smiling helplessly at Eames. “I need my processing time.” 

“So you’ve been thinking about Alec, and what’s your conclusion?” 

“I don’t want to think about him anymore. I’m not going to waste any more energy worrying about him. I’m just going to be happy. And he can, you know, just fuck off.” Arthur leans up to give Eames a kiss. It tastes pure and joyous from his perspective. 

Eames doesn’t kiss him back the same way. 

Arthur draws back. “What?” he says. 

“Nothing,” Eames says, and shakes his head a little bit. “This is good. You don’t worry. You just be happy. That’s what I want.” Eames smiles at him. 

Arthur hesitates. Then he says, “Are you going to worry instead? Is that what this is?” 

“What if I said…maybe?”

“I would say…” Arthur shifted to distribute his weight better. “I don’t approve of you thinking about things that aren’t sex with me. Or trampolines.” 

“Sex with you _on_ a trampoline,” suggests Eames. 

“If you want that fanfiction, you’ll have to wait until Christmas.” 

“That long? You’re American, don’t you lot give gifts on the Fourth of July?” 

“No,” says Arthur. “Shut up.” 

“Make me,” Eames grins at him. 

So Arthur does. He makes it so they both stop worrying about Alec.


	65. Chapter 65

The next day is Challenge Announcement Day, and Arthur is full of the new ambition of Being Nice to Alec. Arthur isn’t usually Nice with a capital “N” like that to anyone, he knows. This is why Eames is the popular one and he is merely tolerated. But Arthur is going to be Nice to Alec. 

He is actually whistling as he knots his tie. 

Eames sticks his head into the bathroom and says suspiciously, “What is that noise?” 

“I’m whistling,” Arthur explains. 

Eames’s eyes narrow. “I’ve never heard that sound before in my life.”

Arthur considers. “Am I not a good whistler?” It’s true he doesn’t usually whistle, but he thought he was decent at it. 

“No, you’re a lovely whistler. But what is the whistling about? That isn’t even a new tie.” 

“I’m in a good mood,” Arthur says, walking over to him in the doorway and beaming at him. “It’s just a good day. My romantic and attractive boyfriend and I are going to go do a ridiculously easy job that we get paid an absurd amount of money for and then we’re going to come home and I’m going to convince my formerly impossible clients to write up an offer and you’re going to install a playground in our front room and what is not to whistle about?” Arthur gives him a kiss. 

Eames looks uncertain. 

Arthur straightens away from him and frowns a little bit and says, “Seriously? Am I normally so miserable that me deciding to just be happy for a little while makes you look like I’ve started walking on the ceiling?” 

“Sorry,” Eames says hastily. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I don’t think it’s spectacular that you’re so happy.” Eames reaches out and pulls him in by the lapels of his coat, until he is tucked against Eames’s chest. Arthur rests his chin on Eames’s shoulder and tries not to frown, because hadn’t he just said he was going to enjoy how happy he was? “I guess I’m wondering why you were never this happy before,” says Eames, and kisses behind his ear.

“It was processing time,” Arthur says. “I’ve processed and now I’ve realized, you know, this is good and solid, what we have, and life is so fucking short, and I’m happy.” Arthur presses his nose against Eames’s neck. 

“I’m going to keep you this happy forever,” Eames says against him. 

“Yes,” agrees Arthur, because it seems like such a simple truth. “You are.” 

“So long as we’re agreed on that,” Eames says. 

***

Arthur is still whistling as he scrolls through Tumblr on his phone, waiting for Julia to be done with Eames’s make-up. 

Julia looks at him and says, “What’s that?” 

“What the fuck,” Arthur complains. “Why can’t I whistle? Is that such a startling thing for people to do?” 

“Arthur’s happy,” Eames explains to Julia. 

“Got it,” Julia says. “Why is he happy?” 

“Because I am a pretty bloody magnificent shag, Julia, let me tell you,” says Eames. 

“You’ve been dating a while now. Did you just finally figure out how to unlock Arthur’s sexual door last night?”

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “I am _right here_.” 

“And I am thoroughly insulted,” says Eames. “I have had the sexual key to his sexual door for a long time now, okay? _Since the beginning_. Darling, tell her.”

“I’m not telling her about my sexual door,” Arthur says. 

“Is the key your penis?” Julia asks Eames. 

“Of course,” says Eames. 

“Okay,” says Julia. “But what about Sebastian Stan?”

“What about him?” says Eames. 

“Nothing. I just like to bring him up in case you suddenly decide to want to introduce me to him. Just like you suddenly decided to ring Arthur’s bell enough last night that he’s whistling today.” 

“It’s not about sex,” Arthur says. “Not all of my moods are the direct result of sex with Eames.” 

“Only most of them,” Eames tells Julia. 

“Well, now I know who to blame when he’s glowering at everyone,” Julia says. “Okay, you’re done. Next.” 

“I’m off for tea. None of this conversation was manageable without tea,” Eames announces, and scurries away. 

Arthur frowns after him and settles in the make-up chair and says earnestly, “I don’t mean to glower.” 

“It’s fine,” Julia tells him lightly. “You’re my favorite.” 

“You say that to everyone,” Arthur points out. 

“Yeah, but I mean it with you,” Julia says, almost as if she does actually mean it. “So tell me what’s with the whistling.” 

“I thought you thought it was really good sex.” 

“Arthur, I don’t want you to get all creeped out by thinking about me imagining Eames in bed, but let’s just say I’m kind of hoping you’ve been having really good sex for a while.” 

“Can we change the subject?” asks Arthur desperately. 

“Sure,” says Julia, with a negligent shrug. 

There’s a moment of silence. 

Arthur says, “I’m just happy.” 

“Good,” Julia says, and twitches a little smile at him. “I’m glad. You deserve it.” 

He feels like that’s a funny thing to say. “Everyone deserves it.” 

“No, I know. It’s just that you…” Julia pauses. “I think you worry a lot. I think you worry a lot for everyone else, not just for yourself. So it’s nice to see you just enjoy for a little bit. Stop planning for those worst case scenarios in your head. Just enjoy.” 

“Exactly,” Arthur says. But even as he says it, he starts to get an itch of discomfort. 

“And now I’ve gone and worried you again,” sighs Julia. “Sorry. Talk about something that makes you happy. Eames? Want to talk about Eames?” 

“And how you imagine him in bed? No.” 

“Okay. Let’s talk about the viewing party then. Are you excited?”

Arthur is seldom excited for parties. But he says truthfully, “Eames is going to make a spectacular transformation of our front room. Wait until you see it.” 

Julia actually steps away from him. “Wait, what?” 

“I’m not going to give you any details,” Arthur says. “I want you to be surprised. But you have to wear a hat. We’re making everyone wear a hat.” Project Being Nice to Alec doesn’t mean they can’t still all wear hats at the party, Arthur decides. He doesn’t want to go overboard on the Nice thing, after all. 

“I’m invited?” is what Julia says, looking surprised. 

Arthur is bewildered. “Of course you’re invited.” 

“I didn’t think I was going to be! I thought it was just going to be, you know, you designing people.” 

“I’m not a designing person,” Arthur points out. “And of course you’re going to come. It’s a _Next Big Thing_ party. You’re part of _Next Big Thing_.” 

Julia gives him an extraordinarily wide smile and says, “This is why you deserve to be happy: because you’re so _nice_.” 

“Eames is nice,” Arthur says uncomfortably. “I’m just, you know, Arthur.” 

“Arthur the leprechaun,” grins Julia. “The very lucky and very nice leprechaun.”

“I’ll give you the very lucky part,” says Arthur. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Julia asks, going back to work. 

“No, Sebastian Stan isn’t coming.” 

Julia snorts laughter, then says seriously, “Fine. But is Yusuf?”


	66. Chapter 66

Alec is being positioned for his optimal lighting. Eames is complaining about the profusion of vegetables on the catering table. 

“It’s vegetable dip,” Arthur points out. 

“I think they could give us some crisps, is all I’m saying,” says Eames. 

Arthur can’t be bothered to freak out over vegetables. He has much bigger things on his mind. “Eames, you know yesterday when I said I wasn’t going to worry about Alec anymore and I was just going to be happy?” 

“Yes, and today you started whistling. What _is_ this?” Eames holds up a celery stick. 

“It’s a celery stick, Eames. We have those in our house. In fact, we had them for lunch yesterday. Or I did. Mostly you just frowned at them suspiciously like I might be using them to poison you.” Arthur gets them back on track, “And you said that maybe you were going to start worrying for me.” 

“Yes,” Eames agrees, and then, “But I don’t approve of these being in our house. I do find them suspicious. They’re very fibrous, aren’t they? I mean, they’re basically just bamboo, I feel. We could make flooring out of celery.”

“No celery floors,” says Arthur. “You are worrying, right? At least a little bit?” 

“Why?” Eames’s eyes flicker over to Alec, suddenly hard and serious. Eames can get like this, can turn on a dime from light and flirtatious to deadly, lethal, focused. The shift always makes Arthur wonder what Eames would have been like in a career that demanded more gravity than the one he ended up in. Sometimes it’s not so hard for Arthur to imagine Eames in the military. Alright, maybe that’s being kind. Probably Eames would be a high-priced assassin, because Eames isn’t all that good at following rules. “What’s he done?” Eames demands, turning back to Arthur, his voice flat. 

“Nothing. He hasn’t done anything. It’s just that Julia reminded me that usually it’s my job to worry about worst case scenarios. You know, I…run point on our lives, I make sure nothing’s going to go wrong, I keep it all running smoothly, and if I’m not doing that—”

“I am,” says Eames simply. “Darling, you have never had to be the only one holding this operation together. I’ve got your back, hmm?”

“Right.” Arthur nods, relieved. “I trust you. That’s what this is about.” 

“You trust me. I know that. You just don’t trust the rest of the world. You barely trust _gravity_.” 

“I just like to be sure,” Arthur says. 

“And I love you for it,” Eames says, and kisses Arthur’s left dimple-if-he-was-smiling. 

“I’m going to be nice to Alec,” says Arthur. “But I’m not going to _trust_ him. But I’m not going to actively worry about him, either.” 

“And I think this is the right approach,” says Eames. “And we’ll both run a little bit of point, and we’ll both worry just the tiniest amount, and mostly we’ll both just enjoy the pleasure of being a very good team, hmm?”

“Is it alarming that we talk about our relationship a little like it’s a military operation that we have to coordinate?” 

“I prefer to think of it as an art heist,” says Eames cheerfully. “Something really thrilling and glamorous and we pull it off without a hitch and you’re very sexy when you’re being a very competent thief and we make out a lot in getaway cars.” 

“Is this a fanfic?” 

“Maybe.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur, and shakes his hand fondly. “I’m going to go make amends with your ex-boyfriend in advance of inviting him to our house for a party.” 

“Want me to come along?” asks Eames. 

“I’ve got this,” says Arthur, and winks at Eames to prove it, and then fixes his tie as he approaches Alec.


	67. Chapter 67

Arthur has never been up-close for the Alec positioning before. He’s only watched from afar. It is quite the operation. Arthur wants to ask why Alec bothers, if the hat really adds that much, but then he thinks that probably wouldn’t set the tone of appeasement that he’s going for. _Nice, nice, nice_ , thinks Arthur. _What would Eames do?_

Arthur starts with, “Hi.” 

Alec looks startled, enough that he shifts his head. 

“Don’t move,” barks Yusuf from behind the camera. 

Alec tries to readjust himself. “Hello there,” he says, smiling broadly at Arthur as if Arthur comes to chat with him all the time, even though it’s clear in Alec’s eyes, behind that innocuous surface layer, that he’s confused. 

“So,” says Arthur, taking a deep breath, “I wanted to come over and say, you know, that I think we got off on the wrong foot.” 

Alec says nothing for a moment. Then he says, “What?” 

“I thought, you know, there’s no reason why we can’t work together perfectly well. We’re both professionals. We’re both…good at what we do.” Arthur thinks he even manages to sound sincere about that. 

Alec blinks at him, looking astonished. Too astonished, in fact, to pretend not to be astonished. 

Arthur goes on. “And we both want this show to be a success and we both want the contestants to do well and anyway I really am looking forward to the viewing party and I’m glad you suggested it.” Arthur tries a smile. He’s not especially good at faking smiles—the dimples are never quite as good, Eames tells him—but he figures he needs to give this a try. 

Alec stares at him for long enough that Arthur actually thinks maybe he should just turn around and go. 

Then Alec draws his eyebrows together and says, “What’s this about?” 

Arthur hadn’t really expected that. “Nothing.” 

“You just decided to come over here and give me that ridiculous speech for no reason?” snaps Alec. 

Arthur feels oddly like this is the most honest version of Alec he’s ever seen. He says, “Well, for the reason that I don’t see any reason for us not to get along.” 

“Oh, really? You don’t? What about the fact that I used to fuck your boyfriend?” 

“Well,” drawls Arthur before he can help himself, “that’s tempered by the fact that he’s not fucking you now.” 

Alec’s eyes are narrow and flashing. Now that Arthur’s making a genuine effort to be nice, Alec has decided to be the rudest Arthur’s ever seen him. 

It’s kind of amazing, and all it makes Arthur want to do is be even nicer in response. 

So he smiles blandly and says, “Of course, everything between you and Eames is long-gone water under the bridge, and I’m so pleased that you and I have had this opportunity to get to know each other, and I can’t wait to welcome you to our home. I’m pretty sure that we will both feel the joy of the occasion _here_.” Arthur lays his hand over his heart. 

He thinks he hears Yusuf snort from behind the camera, but he’s not sure. 

Alec says, “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, you know.” 

Arthur wants to laugh. “You shouldn’t,” he deadpans. “I am very sneaky and tricky. Now.” He turns solemn. “Do you want to read the challenge out? I know how you love it.” 

“Go to hell,” says Alec. 

“So this olive branch on my part has worked out really well,” remarks Arthur. “Good to know.” 

“Alec,” calls Yusuf, “you’ve got to tip your head more to the left.” 

Arthur leaves Alec to his positioning and walks back over to Eames, who lifts his eyebrows at him and says, “How’d that go?” 

“Not especially well. He thinks I’m up to something.” 

Eames snorts. “Because he’s never nice without an ulterior motive, so he can’t imagine it of anyone else.” 

“Whatever,” Arthur says. “Not worrying about it anymore. I have Been Nice to Alec. I will continue to Be Nice to Alec. Mostly because it freaks him out.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses Arthur’s cheek and says, “You manage to be nice and devious at the same time. I love you.” 

“I want to hire a bouncer to keep him out of our private rooms at the party, though,” says Arthur. 

“And if he gets by the bouncer, we should set it up that he gets attacked by a tiger or a boa constrictor or something,” suggests Eames. 

“Seems unnecessarily elaborate,” remarks Arthur. “We could just put the alarm on.” 

“My way is more fun,” says Eames. 

“And more likely to get us killed. How would we stop the tiger or the boa constrictor from killing us when we go home at the end of the party?” 

“We’d train them.” 

“How would we have time to train a tiger or a boa constrictor before the viewing party?”

“Fine,” says Eames. “That’s a good point.” There’s a pause. “I do like that you didn’t question that I could get us a tiger or a boa constrictor.”

“I never question your ability to get anything you want,” says Arthur drily. 

“I even got you,” notes Eames, and kisses underneath Arthur’s jaw. “And you hate fixer-uppers.” 

“ _Bonjour_!” calls Mal as she breezes in. “Shall we begin? Are we ready to read the challenge? Eames and Arthur, do stop being so lustful.”

“Lustful,” echoes Eames, sounding like he approves of the adjective. 

“Time to be professional,” Arthur says, ducking away from Eames. 

“But I’m not done being lustful,” Eames notes. 

“So much time, so little to kiss,” says Arthur as he moves away, then pauses and throws over his shoulder. “Wait. Stop. Reverse that.” 

Eames’s jaw drops satisfyingly. “Did you just quote Willy Wonka at me?” 

Arthur grins. Despite Alec’s reaction to his attempted olive branch—or maybe because of it—Arthur’s still happy. Arthur feels a little like he could skip over to where Alec’s waiting for them and glaring. Alec is sulking so hard he doesn’t even want to read the challenge. So Arthur reads it to the contestants who file in, and he’d almost forgotten that it was one of the challenges geared toward him. _Stage a living room for an open house._

Arthur beams out at the contestants. 

Alec looks like he wants to crawl into a hole somewhere. 

Eames, when everything is over, drags Arthur outside, around the corner of the building, and kisses him up against the wall. 

It’s a good day.


	68. Chapter 68

Arthur isn’t sure when he stopped freaking out about having to judge the show. He can’t pinpoint exactly when he stopped spending the entire day before judging fretting and taking intense notes about the preferences of other people when it comes to whatever the challenge of the week happens to be. He supposes he just finally started listening to Eames about trusting his own instincts, about being comfortable with himself, about relaxing a little bit. 

All he knows is that, before _Next Big Thing_ started, he had been looking forward to the open house challenge because it was one he expected to understand, and now he feels indifferent toward it. It’s a decent challenge but he’s okay with any challenge these days. It’s progress, he thinks. 

“You make people see possibilities,” he tells Eames as the car drives them to filming for judging day. 

Eames looks at him, eyebrows raised. “So do you.”

“Not as much as you,” says Arthur. 

“You take people to empty houses, or other people’s houses, and you convince them to see them as their own. That’s making people see possibilities.” 

Arthur doesn’t really think of his job that way. He tends to think of his job as a rough sort of science, his color-coded spreadsheets combining to make all of the pros and cons balance out and somehow equal the right price range. But maybe, as Eames suggests, there’s been a little more art to it, a little more imagination to it, all along. “I guess,” Arthur says. 

“Meanwhile I just throw some color around and look good whilst doing it,” says Eames. 

“Right, but you challenge people to accept color they wouldn’t have thought that they wanted to accept,” Arthur explains. 

Eames looks at him curiously. “What brought this on? Are you that taken with the new playground in the front room? Do you want to keep it forever?”

“I think keeping a sandbox in a house is thoroughly impractical. That sand’s going to get everywhere.”

“So?”

“So then I’ll be less enthusiastic about having sex with you, if I think I’m going to end up with sand in unpleasant places as a result,” Arthur points out. 

“No sandbox then,” Eames agrees immediately. “What about the rest?” 

“It does look good,” Arthur admits, because honestly, who doesn’t want a playground in their house? “We can leave it for a while. At least until the next party and you change up the theme again. But really what I was thinking was that you saw the possibilities for this job, when I would have turned it down without a second thought.” 

“What job?” asks Eames. 

“The one we’re going to now. The celebrity judging gig. I wouldn’t have done _Next Big Thing_ but you thought it would be fun and you were right. It’s turned out well.”

“Yes,” says Eames, “what with my obnoxious ex-whatever who you can’t stand and who is endlessly pretentious and irritating and snipes at you on Twitter. I would call that a rousing success by any definition of the phrase.” 

Arthur chuckles. “If you ignore the Alec part, I think it’s turned out well. It’s been interesting and we’ve met some interesting people and it’s inspired you to give me some very lovely gifts and it’s made me realize that maybe I understand more about this designing business than I gave myself credit for. And I think it’s been good for us.” Arthur says it seriously, looking across at Eames. He doesn’t think their relationship wasn’t good before _Next Big Thing_ \--because it was fucking spectacular, always, and he knows that—but he also feels like they’ve reached some sort of deeper understanding, some deeper comfort level with who they are, separately and together. Arthur thinks of the on-hold marriage proposal, which is usually flitting around in the back of his mind, and he thinks about forever and how real that forever seems to him now, how undeniable, how inevitable. 

Eames, after a moment, smiles at him. “Well, it led us to fanfiction, and what has been better for our relationship than that?” 

“Admitting we were in love,” Arthur reminds him. “Finally getting around to admitting we were in love with each other was much better for our relationship. In that it caused that relationship to actually happen.” 

“Fine,” says Eames, grinning at him. “We’ll agree to rank fanfiction second. No, wait, third, behind your glasses.” 

“I thought me and my glasses were tied with Willy Wonka.” 

“Oh, Christ, I forgot about Willy Wonka. But Willy Wonka’s on our sex list, not our relationship list.” 

“I don’t want Willy Wonka on our sex list. I’m trying to get us to stop talking about Willy Wonka and sex.” 

“You’re the one who brought up Willy Wonka,” Eames tells him unrepentantly. 

That’s true, and Arthur has no excuse for that. “Fucking Willy Wonka,” he says. 

“There you go talking about Willy Wonka and sex again.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Arthur, but he’s laughing as he good-naturedly shoves Eames away.


	69. Chapter 69

“I think this challenge is utterly pointless,” says Alec, as they’re waiting for Mal to herd them to the first contestant’s room. 

Arthur had been making sure his tie is straight, but he glances over to Alec at that. 

Alec is, of course, looking innocent, as if he is honestly going to pretend that he doesn’t know the challenge was put in the show for Arthur’s sake. 

Arthur’s gaze shifts toward Eames, who’s leaning up against the wall and biting at a cuticle to hide the smirk he’s wearing. It doesn’t hide it very well. 

Arthur doesn’t rise to the bait, because Arthur is not rising to the bait these days. He is a new man, a reformed man, a man who is Nice to Alec. Because he knows it drives Alec fucking insane. 

Yusuf swings the camera toward Arthur and says, “What do you think about the challenge?” 

Arthur says mildly, “Well, open houses are an enormous part of the work to which I have devoted my life, my energy, my soul, and my _heart_. But it is, of course, Alec’s prerogative to find them pointless. Much as it is my prerogative to find fedoras pointless.” He says it and then immediately wants to say, _Oh, fuck, erase that, start over, I’m supposed to be being nice_. He is really fucking terrible at being nice. 

Eames tries to stifle a giggle by practically shoving a finger into his mouth. It shouldn’t be attractive. 

Yusuf swings the camera to Eames. “What do you think of the challenge?” 

“I think all challenges are good, Yusuf,” says Eames magnanimously. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that.” 

Arthur, satisfied with his tie, lets himself look at Alec, who looks displeased. And Arthur would feel bad except that Alec is a prick who refuses to meet Arthur halfway on being, you know, a decent human being. 

Arthur says, “How are you today, Alec? Did you enjoy the last couple of days off? Are you working on any design projects currently?” _Perfect_ , Arthur thinks. _That is definitely nice_.

Alec snaps at him, “Go to hell.” 

“Okay,” says Arthur sunnily, which he can see annoys Alec even more. And he really, really should feel bad about that. Except that he doesn’t. 

Mal arrives and says, “Let’s get this show on the road or some idiom like that,” and throws open the door leading to the first contestant’s living room. 

Arthur snags Eames’s hand before they walk through and tugs him closer so he can breathe into his ear, “Am I a terrible person?” 

Eames breathes back, “When we get home I am going to fuck you until you scream.” 

“Okay,” says Arthur. “I feel less terrible now.” 

Eames winks at him and then they head into the first contestant’s space. 

Arthur gave an interview, before the judging started, where he stated that this might be the most difficult of the challenges the designers have faced so far. The right blend of personality and blankness to equal a welcoming open house is extremely elusive. Arthur isn’t even sure Eames could do it. Eames is a fabulous designer but he’s a people person; he designs with the subject in mind. Designing in the abstract for _everyone_ is, Arthur thinks, utilizing a different sort of talent altogether. 

Mal starts them off with a bang because the first room is Misty Rainbow’s and it’s mirrored. Every square inch of it is mirrored. The floor is mirrored and the ceiling is mirrored and the walls are mirrored and the coffee table is mirrored and the fireplace is mirrored—even the _inside_ of the fireplace is mirrored—and there are cushions on the mirrored frames of the couch and the chairs but even they are in a metallic fabric that strikes Arthur as being mirrored. 

Arthur stands in the room and looks at the dizzying number of reflections and re-reflections of him and Eames and Alec. 

And Misty Rainbow, who says, “Welcome.” 

“Hi,” says Eames pleasantly, as if it is not totally creepily disconcerting to be standing in a room so mirrored that you realize you can see the back of your own head. 

“This room,” says Alec. “I understand.”

Misty Rainbow blinks at him. “You do?” 

“Yes,” says Alec without hesitation. “This room is about holding a mirror up to your very _soul_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” says Misty Rainbow rapturously. 

Arthur kind of thinks this room is a little too spot-on. Like, he likes his mirrors to be a little more metaphorical. “How would you ever keep it clean between showings?” Arthur asks practically. 

“ _Exactly_ ,” Misty Rainbow says to him. “ _Exactly_.” 

Arthur looks at her blankly. “Exactly…what?”

“It is the challenge that we all must confront: how do we keep ourselves clean. How indeed, Arthur? How indeed, Arthur?” 

“Okay,” says Arthur, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“What if the people who buy this house don’t want to be holding a mirror up to their souls all the time?” asks Eames.

“Then they are misguided and their souls need help,” says Misty Rainbow solemnly.

“Eames has a point, though,” Arthur says. 

Alec mumbles something that sounds like, “Of _course_ you would think that.” 

Arthur ignores him. “It seems like it would be a lot of money to redo this entire room.” 

“And you’d have to break a lot of mirrors,” adds Eames. “That’s a hell of a lot of bad luck.” 

“A good open house staging wouldn’t be so customized that it makes a buyer feel excluded from the home’s vision,” says Arthur. 

“You are missing the point of the room,” Alec tells him hotly. 

“No, I got the point,” says Arthur flatly. “It’s a mirror. You can’t miss that, Alec. The whole thing is literally _one gigantic mirror_. I’m worrying about what the mirror’s effect will be on the room as an open house, which was the point of the challenge.”

Alec gives him a look that’s almost sad. “And that is why you’ll always be a real estate agent and never a designer. You’re too grounded in practicalities. You don’t ever let yourself take flight. Real estate agents are suck sticks in the mud,” Alec confides to Misty Rainbow. 

Eames starts to say something but Arthur cuts him off swiftly by saying to Alec, “I convince people to walk into a room like this and see themselves in it. And not literally, because that wouldn’t take ay effort at all, obviously. I convince them to look at a room designed for a totally different set of personalities and see it as their own. If pulling that off isn’t taking flight, I don’t know what is. Next room,” Arthur announces, determined to get the last word, and marches out of the mirrored room. His innumerable reflections follow him.


	70. Chapter 70

The next room is Trizz’s room. It is drenched in red and black. It is as red-and-black as Misty Rainbow’s room was mirrored. The walls are red and the throw rug over the hardwood floors is red and the seating is black with red accents and the coffee table is red with squat black vases on it. There is chandelier dripping with black crystals. Arthur’s a little surprised the lights aren’t red-tinted. 

He almost feels like he’s walked into some sort of Halloween room. Although Arthur supposes he could see this room working, for a certain type of person. 

“And what does this room _say_?” Alec asks Trizz, with his sincere scrunch-face in place. 

“I was going for decadence,” Trizz explains. 

“Why?” persists Alec. 

“Because who doesn’t want to live in a house that feels decadent?” says Trizz. 

“I think,” says Eames delicately, “that the trouble with using decadence as your inspiration for an open house is that everybody’s definition of decadence is going to be different.” 

Arthur is relieved that Eames has put it into words so diplomatically. Trizz looks absolutely blank. 

Eames continues, “For instance, this is your definition of decadence. Willy Wonka’s definition of decadence, however, would include a chocolate garden and probably some brighter colors.” 

“Willy Wonka?” says Alec. 

“Willy Wonka was a decadent bloke, wouldn’t you say?” says Eames. 

“I think there exists the possibility,” says Alec, “that some people’s definitions of decadence might be incorrect.” 

“No,” says Arthur. “No, that’s not true. People like what they like and—”

“So you don’t think there’s such a thing as bad taste?” challenges Alec. 

Arthur pauses. And looks meaningfully at Alec’s hat. And then says, “Yeah, I think plenty of things are in bad taste.” The fact that he doesn’t add _like your hat_ is a testament to how nice he’s bring. “I just don’t tell a client their taste is bad. And if a client has a different definition of decadence then—”

“So what would you tell a client who came into this room and thought it was in bad taste?” inquires Alec. 

“I’d tell them they need to imagine it differently. They need to imagine it to _their_ definition of decadence. This room’s design is too strong, though, and that makes my job harder, requires the imaginative power involved to be extensive. That’s why you’d avoid something like this in an open house.” 

“Then wouldn’t it be easier to just convince your client that this is decadent? And that they’re wrong to want it any other way?” 

Arthur is aware of Trizz and Eames standing between them, their heads going back and forth like it’s a tennis match. He says, “Christ, is that how you design? Really?” 

Alec says, “Even your precious Eames would tell you half of designing is convincing the client they want what you’ve given them.” 

“And the other half is listening to what they say they want so you can convince them of what they really want in a way that makes sense,” Arthur snaps. “This room can’t get you there. I can’t convince the average family that they want an entirely red-and-black living room. I’m going to have to tell them to imagine painting the walls and switching out the furniture. And there’s an added problem because this color scheme makes this room seem much smaller than it actually is, which is never what you want to do when you’re staging an open house. So this room is difficult to work with. To be totally honest, Misty Rainbow’s room is almost better because it’s such a total gut job that people would just dismiss it. But people get fixated on stupid things like paint on the walls. So if I’m walking a client through here, the best I can do is to try to paint a picture of what this room could be and hope that they buy it. For instance, I might say, ‘Alec, imagine this room without the red paint and the black furniture. Imagine it instead filled with fedoras. Do you feel such a room _here_?’” Arthur lays a hand over Alec’s heart. 

Alec blinks furiously at Arthur, and Arthur waits to hear what he can possibly have to say in response. 

Except Eames steps between them and says, “I think we should move on to the next room.” 

Alec accepts the suggestion without a word, turning and walking out. 

“This is you being nice, eh?” Eames remarks to Arthur, casually, sticking his hands in his pockets. 

“I’m very, very bad at being nice,” fumes Arthur, annoyed with himself and annoyed with Alec. 

“It’s okay,” Eames says, “because you are good at making good points. And the Internet’s going to love it.” 

“This is going to be one hell of a party at your house, isn’t it?” comments Trizz.


	71. Chapter 71

They go from Trizz’s room to Gon’s room, and it’s a little anticlimactic. Arthur can’t decide if Gon’s room really is overwhelmingly simple or if it just seems that way in comparison to Misty Rainbow’s and Trizz’s. He wishes Mal hadn’t ordered it this way. 

Gon’s gone for a mid-century modern style in the room, so everything is very sleek and uncluttered. It works, and he’s picked out very classic pieces of furniture, but it’s perhaps still a little bit too particular for an open house. Especially since he’s wallpapered with a metallic geometric pattern and he’s done the floor in a fancy hardwood mosaic. Yes, it works, undeniably, but it might be too specific. 

Alec bites out, “So what’s the point of this room?” as soon as he walks into it. 

Gon blinks at him in surprise, and Arthur doesn’t blame him, because Gon has no idea what just happened in Trizz’s room and Alec is behaving as if the confrontation level in this room has already been dialed up to eleven. 

Eames says evenly, “I think we should all take a deep breath and not punish Gon for professional disagreements.” 

“Professional disagreements?” snaps Alec at him. 

“Yes,” Eames says, and now there’s a trace of steel in his voice and in the look he gives Alec. “ _Professional._ You’re familiar with that word, right? You understand how to be professional?” 

“Cut the filming,” commands Alec and immediately storms off. 

“Alec!” shouts Mal, and hurries off after him. Arthur can hear French oaths trailing after her. 

Gon looks after them and says, “Professional disagreement?” 

“Yeah,” says Eames. “We designers get very passionate about open houses. You know how it is.”

“Right,” says Gon slowly. 

There’s a moment of awkward silence. 

Finally Arthur says, “I think the wallpaper was a mistake,” and then he wants to die. He thought it would help if he got them back on track, but he probably should have started with something positive. 

But Gon just says curiously, “Really?” 

Arthur, after a moment, decides he’s got to continue now. “I mean, it’s lovely, but I’m always cautious about wallpaper when I’m staging. Some people hate all wallpaper and just see it as work to remove it. The same with the floor: lovely, but difficult to get rid of if you don’t like it. Why am I saying all of this?” Arthur looks to Eames, thinking at him, _Please shut me up_. 

But apparently Eames is not telepathic, because he simply nods his head thoughtfully.

_Not helpful_ , Arthur thinks at him furiously. Why must he have a pointlessly non-telepathic boyfriend? 

Gon says, “No, this is good stuff. I didn’t think about that. I was thinking that I wanted the room to appeal to as many people as it could, so I tried to go with something largely inoffensive. I mean, it’s all very simple, right? Not cluttered. But I also wanted it to be me. That’s what you said to me when you were coaching me, right? To still be me.”

Arthur feels like a dick at that point. “I know,” he says helplessly. “I’m giving contradictory advice.” 

“No, it’s true,” Eames says. “It’s lovely, your designs get better every week. But Arthur is the expert in staging and his instincts are correct here. Be yourself, but in ways that are easily changeable. When I was house-hunting, I was an utter prat over other people’s design choices. Even when they were quite lovely, I pouted about wanting to make my mark in the place. And if it was going to be costly to get that make made, then it was less inspiring to me. Now, granted, I’m a very specific and demanding person—” 

“You’re not,” interjects Arthur, relieved Eames brought up that story, because it’s perfect. When Eames looks at him he says, “I mean, yes, in a way, you are.” 

“Why, thank you, darling,” says Eames drily. 

Arthur ignores him. “But every client is a very specific type of _something_. So this room is nice, it really is, but I’d avoid anything that can’t easily be changed out, that might make anyone think of work.” 

Gon nods and says, “That’s a good point. I should have thought of that. I was so busy trying to impress everyone with the mosaic.” 

“Oh, I love the mosaic,” says Eames. “It’s gorgeous. I’d buy this house in a second.” 

“And then you’d want to rip up the mosaic so you could do your own,” points out Arthur. 

“Well, I _am_ very specific and demanding,” smiles Eames. 

That’s when Mal arrives back. “Alec is ill,” she announces. And she even manages to do it with a straight face. 

“Oh,” says Eames, “how sad. How tragic. Poor Alec. Is it serious? Will he feel better soon?” Eames also manages to do this with a straight face. 

Arthur says, “Fuck,” and pinches at the bridge of his nose, where a headache is going to develop, he can tell. Then he says, “Would it help if I apologized?” 

“No,” says Eames immediately. “When you apologize, he thinks it means even more dire things. He’s bloody paranoid about you and I’m not letting you expose yourself to further pointless and nonsensical attacks by him.”

“Oh, you’re not ‘letting’ me?” retorts Arthur. 

“Can we fight about this later when we’re not being filmed, darling?” requests Eames sharply. “You’re not talking to Alec anymore today.” 

“Good to know,” says Arthur. “Mal, Eames says I can’t talk to Alec anymore today. Oh, dear, was I allowed to talk to Mal, Eames? Did that meet with your approval?” 

Eames frowns at him but doesn’t say anything. Which is probably wise because Eames is right about the camera being on them but Arthur is miffed by Eames ordering him around—even if Eames is probably right about that, too, and is doing it from a loving protective place—and Arthur is miffed that he lost his temper with Alec and Arthur is miffed that Alec is such a melodramatic fucking baby in the first place and Arthur is miffed that Eames ever slept with him and at the moment Arthur is miffed that they ever agreed to do this fucking show. 

Even though he’s also aware that just this morning he was thrilled to death over the agreement to do the show. 

Mal says, “I agree with Eames. I think you can only make things worse.” 

“I don’t understand why this is all my fault,” Arthur complains. “I’ve been trying to be very professional. He’s been—”

“You punched him,” Mal reminds him. 

“Ah,” says Arthur. “Yeah, okay, there was that, that’s true. But other than that—”

“Other than your violent assault he could have pressed charges over?” 

“Let’s not get carried away, Mal,” Eames inserts. 

“Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? This network has given me the three most dramatic men in the universe to serve as judges!” 

“I am not _dramatic_ ,” Arthur protests, offended. 

“Never mind,” says Mal, waving her hand about. “I haven’t time to debate the accuracy of your self-image. We’ve got to stay on schedule, so we’re just going to judge with you two.” 

Arthur blinks at her in surprise. 

“Really?” says Eames. “That’s…allowed?” 

“Like this show has ever paid much attention to what’s ‘allowed,’” Mal points out. 

“They’ve already basically done Gon,” says Yusuf. “I was taping the whole time.” 

“Aren’t you always?” asks Eames. 

“Fine,” says Mal, “so let’s go on to the next one.” 

“But,” starts Arthur, because surely there are a million questions to be asked about this. 

“Arthur, my lovely,” says Mal in a long-suffering voice. “Please can we have no more dramatics and just go on and do the rest of this accursed judging now?” 

Maybe Arthur’s done enough to fuck this show up today, he decides, and he’s definitely _not_ dramatic, he is the fucking professional one who gets everything done, well, on time, flawlessly. So he says, “Yes.”


	72. Chapter 72

Arthur is still miffed at Eames as they walk to the next room and Eames is smart enough to know it so Eames doesn’t try any flirting to get him out of it. Probably, Arthur thinks, Eames doesn’t want to be rebuffed on camera. 

The next room is Ariadne’s, and he walks in out-of-sorts and that still doesn’t affect the fact that he thinks the room is perfect. 

Ariadne looks between them and says, “Where’s Alec?”

“Ill,” answers Eames shortly. 

“Okay,” says Ariadne slowly, and continues to look between them. “You two okay?” 

“We are peachy,” says Eames. Which is a word that clearly only has ever been used by anyone in the world ironically to mean its opposite, thinks Arthur. 

Arthur says, “Tell us about the room.”

“I wanted it to be a little bit for everyone,” she says, “but I didn’t want it to be too overwhelming. I needed to make the room look big so I went with a very gentle monochrome, but I added in some color and softness in places, and a little bit of pattern, too. Like I said: something for everyone. I was hoping that there would be something about the room that would appeal to everyone, so strongly that they’d be willing to overlook the parts of the room that didn’t appeal to them.” 

And she nailed it, Arthur thinks. The room is cream and dark gray, and the juxtaposition is striking but not in a controversial, off-putting way, just in a way that looks sharp. The cream keeps the room feeling light and airy while the dark gray alleviates the impression that it would be impossible to keep clean. She’s chosen furnishings in a careful mix of styles, which is a point in her favor over Gon’s, because Gon’s mid-century modern room, while relatively inoffensive, was nonetheless such a recognizable style that it could be rejected. Arthur, for instance, doesn’t care for mid-century modern, even though Eames loves it. It’s why their house isn’t any recognizable style, much as this room is. The furniture is small but beautifully upholstered in inviting fabrics, with little punches of color in the throw pillows and the accents on the coffee table. She’s managed to make the room seem large but she’s also displayed the room’s versatility, giving it two distinct conversational groupings. The floor is basic hardwood with a chevron rug and the cream walls are dotted over with large, brightly patterned paintings that are conversation pieces but also easily removable. 

Arthur loves it. He _loves_ it. He wouldn’t want to live in the room—there’s something slightly too delicate about it for him, and he’s actually not a fan of the artwork or splashes of color she’s chosen—but he would be very proud to show it. He can _imagine_ living in the room—switching out some artwork and a few throw pillows and a chair or two and it could be his. And he thinks anyone could. 

Arthur is suddenly aware that he and Eames have just been standing in silence for a while. 

Eames breaks it by saying warmly, “Bravo.” 

A smile breaks over Ariadne’s face. “You like it?” 

“It is virtually perfect,” says Eames. 

Ariadne looks at Arthur. 

“I agree,” says Arthur. “It’s wonderful. It would sell any house.” 

“Oh, excellent,” says Ariadne. “I was worried. I feel like I design for me a lot—what I’d like, you know? I always worry maybe I’m going to be bad when it comes to having clients. This was good practice for me.” 

“I think you got it,” says Eames. 

“She did,” says Arthur. 

“Words of advice?” Mal prompts from off-camera. 

Arthur considers. “Less artwork.” 

“Agreed,” says Eames. “Or maybe less loud artwork. One loud piece, other more muted pieces.” 

“I felt like the room needed some more pizzazz,” Ariadne says. 

“It’s a staging,” Arthur says. “The pizzazz is always muted.” 

Ariadne nods. Then she says, “I’m looking forward to the party. Trying to decide what hat I should wear.” 

_The party_ , thinks Arthur. Who even knows the status of the party? Because who even knows the status of Alec? Who even knows the status of this _show_? 

Eames just says, “Don’t tell us. We want it to be a surprise.”

Mal says, “Okay, let’s move on.” 

Eames sidles up behind him as they walk to the next room. 

Arthur sighs and says, “What?” 

“I’m sorry,” Eames says. 

“I know,” says Arthur, because he no longer feels nearly as miffed and now he just feels a little tired and a little frustrated and a little like he wants to just crawl into Eames and forget about the rest of it. 

“Okay,” says Eames, sounding relieved, and Arthur feels bad and stops walking and turns to face him. 

“We’re okay,” he says. 

Eames doesn’t look convinced. “Yeah?”

Arthur nods. “We’ll talk about it later. For now we’re okay.” He leans up and falls short of kissing Eames’s lips, kissing Eames’s cheek instead. And Arthur thinks how anyone watching might think it’s an indication that he’s still miffed but really it’s an olive branch: Eames kisses Arthur’s cheek constantly; Arthur is returning it here. It’s a more special kiss, between them, than a kiss to the lips. 

Eames catches him by his arms before he can quite move away, holds him in place so he can brush a kiss over his temple. “I should send flowers to Ariadne to thank her for creating designs that improve your moods.” 

“You do that, too,” Arthur points out. “It’s why I can’t stay angry with you in our fucking house.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses him again—his forehead, this time—and then says, “Let’s get the rest of this over with.”


	73. Chapter 73

Arthur knows he should have suspected he and Eames could do this show very smoothly without Alec but it’s amazing to see it in action. 

Sunny’s room is a little too sharp, done in black and white with all sorts of hard angles to it, and Arthur says something about how it feels a little bit like a prison because of how the furniture seems to trap and enclose you. Sunny in response bursts into tears and sobs something about feeling trapped by _life_. Arthur is frozen in the face of it because he is fucking terrible at dealing with emotions but Eames is all smooth support and says, “Darling, give me your handkerchief, I know you’ve got one because you insist on dressing like it’s 1936,” and Arthur dazedly hands across the handkerchief that he mainly keeps on his person for show. Eames pats Sunny’s shoulder and says, “There, there,” and they have a conversation about how sometimes designs can really connect with the soul in unanticipated ways and by the end Sunny is drying her tears and smiling and Arthur is pretty sure she’s more than half in love with Eames. 

Jess’s room is done on a carnival theme. Arthur thinks she’s letting loose after the success of her speakeasy last episode but this definitely wasn’t the challenge to choose to do that. Having dead animals stuffed on the walls is pretty much the last thing you want to put in a room for an open house. He points that out, hoping Jess doesn’t start crying, too, but Jess just says that she had a lot of fun with the room, with a little shrug, and so Arthur can’t think of anything do in response but shrug as well. 

Scott brings up the rear, and his room is way too sparsely furnished. He points out that he wanted to make sure the room still felt big, but Arthur says it just feels empty in a way that’s off-putting. Voices echoing in a room is always a bad sign. Scott did build some pretty spectacular bookshelves, though, and Eames says that he’s not sure Scott is a designer so much as he’s some sort of inventor or something. Arthur is worried Scott will be offended by that but Scott beams as if Eames has paid him a fantastic compliment. 

When they’re done Eames says, “Well. That was easy. No snide remarks, no awkward uncomfortable tension.”

“Boring,” sighs Mal. “Ah, well. _C’est la vie_ , as one might say.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur dryly, because what Mal calls _boring_ he calls _relaxing_. 

“What are we going to do about the judging?” Eames asks. “Shall Arthur and I just do it ourselves?” 

“No, we’ve got an idea about that. It involves you.” Mal points at Arthur. 

There goes _relaxing_ , thinks Arthur. “Why me and not Eames?” asks Arthur. 

“Because you’re a real estate agent, my lovely,” Mal tells him, and air-kisses both his cheeks. 

“Um,” says Arthur. “Yes. That’s true. I have been all along.” 

“You’re going to show the rooms,” Mal explains. 

“I’m going to do what?” asks Arthur, surprised. 

“You’re going to show the rooms to some house-hunters we’re finding for you. It’s a last-minute change, so you’ll have to come in tomorrow to do it.” 

“And the house-hunters will decide who wins and loses?” Eames asks. 

Mal nods. 

“Well, it’s a novel approach,” says Eames, “and a good solution. If a temporary one.” Eames looks at Arthur expectantly. 

Arthur knows what that’s for. They still haven’t talked through their earlier quarrel and Eames needs Arthur to take the lead on what he wants to do, because Eames is wary of overstepping. So Arthur nods and says, “Fine. It’s fine.” He can show some rooms to non-clients he doesn’t care about in his fucking sleep. 

“What’s the plan for moving forward?” Eames asks. 

“Well, obviously Alec will come back,” says Mal. “He’s in breach of contract. And he won’t want the bad publicity. He’ll want to come back just to save face.”

“He’ll want to come back just to try to have the last word,” mutters Eames. 

“I do think he will want to play the noble martyr coming back to be the bigger person where Arthur is concerned.” 

“Jesus Christ,” says Arthur. “ _I_ was trying to be the bigger person.” 

“Right,” says Eames sardonically. “So leave it to Alec to try to undermine that narrative for you.” 

“Oh, fuck,” says Arthur, exhausted. “Are we done for the day? Can we go now?” 

“About the party,” Mal says. 

“We’re still having the party,” Arthur says. 

Mal looks surprised. “Oh. I thought I’d have to talk you into that.” 

“Eames put a lot of effort into designing for it,” Arthur says. “I don’t want that wasted.” 

“I don’t mind, darling,” says Eames. 

“I mind,” says Arthur awkwardly, aware that it’s possible he’s overstepping here in the same way he snapped at Eames for before. “You were looking forward to it. Everyone was looking forward to it. I don’t want to cancel it. Definitely not for me.”

Eames holds his gaze. 

Until Mal says, “Is Alec still invited?” 

Eames says, “He—”

Arthur puts a hand up to cut him off and says firmly, “Yes.” 

“Darling,” Eames starts. 

“I’m being the bigger person, Eames. I’m not letting him change the fucking narrative to what he wants it to be. I said I wasn’t going to worry about him, and I’m not going to. He can come or he can not come, it’s up to him. But I’m not going to let him sulk about being excluded.” 

Eames’s eyes are narrow. He looks less pleased with this announcement than he did with Arthur’s prior decision to still host the party. Arthur is aware they are going to have to force themselves to have an unpleasant conversation about all of this when they get home. 

Predictably, Mal ignores all of the tension in the room. “Good,” she says. “That’s what I like to hear. Can we film the party?” 

“No,” Eames and Arthur say at the same time, and Arthur’s relieved they’re in agreement finally. 

“No filming,” Arthur says. 

“Do not show up with a camera, we won’t let you in,” Eames warns her. 

“What about phones? Can we at least livetweet it?” 

Arthur glances at Eames. He lifts a shoulder in a _whatever_ gesture. 

Arthur says, “Okay, livetweeting is fine. It’s not like they’re not going to talk about it anyway. But I don’t want there to be cameras.” 

“You boys worry too much,” Mal informs them. 

Eames bursts out laughing. 

Arthur just says flatly, “No. We obviously fucking don’t.”


	74. Chapter 74

Arthur says, as they settle in the back of the car for the drive home, “I can see why Cobb has a thing for her. They both turn shows into fucking train wrecks.” 

“And somehow we’re always caught in the middle,” Eames grumbles. 

Arthur looks across at him. Glances at their driver. Says, “What do you want to have for dinner?” 

It’s such a ridiculously innocuous thing to say, given everything that’s just happened in their lives, but Eames just smiles across at him and then follows it up with a kiss. A more enthusiastic kiss than Arthur had been expecting. 

He puts a hand on Eames’s chest to nudge a little bit of space between them and whispers, “We have a driver in this car with us.” 

“I know,” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows. “We’re showing him how it’s done.” 

“Oh, my God,” Arthur says. “No, we’re not.” But he still pulls Eames back in and sighs a last lingering kiss into his mouth. Then he murmurs, “We have a lot to talk about.” 

“Yeah,” says Eames. “Dinner is so bloody complicated all the time, isn’t it?” 

“Other things beside dinner.” 

“Right, but let’s start with dinner,” suggests Eames. “I’ll cook.” 

“You’ll cook?” Arthur can’t hide his surprise. “What will you cook?” 

“Eggs. Well-cooked eggs, isn’t that one of your favorite things?” 

“Eggs in cake batter?” asks Arthur suspiciously. 

“Nope. Eggs in omelets. I can make omelets, you know.” 

“Okay, then,” Arthur agrees. He knows that this is Eames being sweet and he loves him for it. “Omelets for dinner.” 

It’s actually nice. They don’t cook together very often, and Arthur finds that he likes it, being in the kitchen together, not really talking but just being comfortable with each other. Eames sings as he cooks, Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson and Christina Aguilera. He has a nice voice, even if the songs are ridiculous, and Arthur sets the table and puts the kettle on for Eames and pours himself a glass of orange juice and leans against the counter and watches as Eames burns their omelets terribly and Arthur doesn’t even care. 

Eames says, “What?” a little defensively. 

“How,” Arthur asks, “am I supposed to be angry with a man when he’s singing ‘Shake It Off’?” 

Eames laughs and abandons the omelets and presses Arthur back against the counter. “My nefarious plan worked.” 

“I love you,” Arthur says, twining his arms around Eames’s neck. “And I’m sorry for snapping at you.” 

“I’m sorry for telling you what to do.” 

“I don’t like being ordered around. And I feel as if Alec keeps taking all of my autonomy away from me, keeps cornering me into doing things, and I reacted badly to feeling like you were doing the same thing.” 

“It wasn’t what I intended. I was only trying to protect you. I worded it poorly.” 

“I know.” Arthur sighs and tips their foreheads together. “And then I made it worse by being sarcastic about it.” 

“Darling, you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t sarcastic about it,” Eames says. “I’ve got your back, though. Remember? We’re a team. You don’t have to run point by yourself anymore. I was trying to protect your back. I didn’t want you left exposed and open to any more of his machinations.” 

“And you think that’s what I’m doing by allowing him to come to the party still?” 

Eames sighs. “I don’t want to fight anymore. Can we not have a fight about this?” 

“We’re not fighting,” Arthur promises, leaning over to turn off the burner before their smoke alarm starts going off. “I just want to hear your opinion.” 

Eames is silent for a long moment. Then he says, “There’s no good option there. You’re right that he’ll sulk if he’s excluded.” 

“How about if I just avoid him all night? There’ll be a lot of other people here. I bet I can pull it off.” 

Eames is silent for another moment. Then he says, “I’d feel better if you did.” 

“Done,” Arthur says, because it’s not like he wants to hang out with Alec anyway and he wants Eames to feel better. 

“Thank you,” Eames says seriously. 

Arthur fists his hands in Eames’s terrible shirt _du jour_ to pull him closer and settles his chin on Eames’s shoulder and tips his head against Eames’s and just breathes for a second. 

“I’m sorry I have such a huge knobhead for my ex…thing,” Eames says. 

“Yeah, this is all your fault,” Arthur says without heat. “Better talk some more British for me, play that accent up.”

“It’s all I’ve got going for me, after all.” 

“Christ knows you’re not going to be able to woo me with your cooking.” 

Eames laughs and then leans back a bit and says, “You know, there’s a way in which this is all your fault.” 

“For trying to be nice to Alec, you mean?” 

“Darling, you are a nice person. I know you don’t think that you are because you’re a bit mad but you’re a very nice person and this is why I have to watch your back sometimes because sometimes you can be too nice, even if you don’t think that about yourself. But no, that’s not why this is your fault.” 

Arthur lets the whole nice thing go. That seems like a pointless discussion to get into. “Why is this my fault, then?” 

“Because you forgave me and gave me a second chance. If you hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be having this issue.” 

“You’re right,” Arthur agrees solemnly. “I caused all of this mess. I should take it back, shouldn’t I?” 

“Too bad it doesn’t work like that.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t?” 

Eames shakes his head. “No taksies-backsies.” 

“Taksies-backsies?” Arthur echoes. “What the fuck is that?” 

“It’s a thing.” 

“A thing you made up just now?” 

“No, an actual thing, and I’ve said it, so you can’t take it back, you’re just stuck with me.” 

“If I hadn’t decided to take you back, you know, you could be with Alec right this very moment. Seducing him up against your shared kitchen counter. Knocking his fedora off sexily.” 

“Is this supposed to be turning me on?” Eames asks. “Because it’s not.” 

“Shut up. I can tell that you’re just fine in that department. I can feel it _here_.” Arthur presses a hand down and squeezes and Eames catches his breath and Arthur raises a smug eyebrow. 

“You know,” Eames says, capturing Arthur’s hand and kissing his wrist, “let’s not pretend you made a grand decision to take me back. You got drunk and I had to prop you up against a tree.” 

“It was way more glamorous and romantic than that,” Arthur informs him. 

“Yeah, in your drunk head it was,” says Eames. 

“I’m an adorable drunk,” says Arthur primly. 

Eames chuckles. “Actually, you are, I can’t argue with that. Do you want to eat some charred eggs or do you want to fuck?” 

“Could you trouble yourself to use a line on me or is our romance that old and decrepit?” 

“Baby, do you need a new roof? Because I’d like to fix myself up with you.” 

“What the hell, that doesn’t even make sense.” 

“It’s part of our special secret sex code, darling, keep up.”

“We have the worst sex code.” 

“Sebastian Stan loved that line,” says Eames. 

Arthur laughs because he can’t help it. He says around his laughter, “Doesn’t Sebastian Stan have _standards_?” 

“No, he’s kind of trashy,” Eames says, as Arthur dissolves into helpless laughter on his chest. “But really good at an orgy.” 

“Poor Sebastian Stan,” gasps Arthur. 

“Hey, baby, are you a nail? Because I’d like to _hit you up_.”

“Stop,” says Arthur. “Please stop, why do you have the worst fucking lines?” 

“I will remind you that I was on Buzzfeed’s list of Most Charming Men.” 

“It was Men We Find Charming Despite Ourselves,” Arthur corrects him. 

“Not how I remember it,” says Eames. 

Arthur laughs again against Eames, and then has a sudden thought and lifts up his head and says, “Am I dramatic?” 

“A little bit,” says Eames. 

“I am _not_!” Arthur protests. “I am never dramatic! I am always cool and calm and rational! _You’re_ dramatic!” 

“You get a little dramatic about laundry, darling.” 

“It’s _laundry_! It’s important!” 

“You once told me that if I made you watch one more episode of _Real Housewives_ you would cover me in plaster and enclose me in our bedroom wall.” 

“That’s a terrible show, Eames.” 

“Yeah, but you were being a little dramatic about it, wouldn’t you say?”

Arthur considers sulkily. “I really don’t think I’m dramatic.” 

“Baby, no need to install a gas fireplace, I can get you hot.” 

“What are you even doing right now?” says Arthur, somewhat resenting the subject change. 

“Picking you up,” Eames explains helpfully. 

“You’re hopeless,” Arthur tells him. “It’s a good thing I got drunk one night.”

“The best thing,” Eames says, abruptly serious. “The absolute best thing.” 

And actually, thinks Arthur, there it is right there: the sort of thing Eames says that shows their romance is never old and decrepit. 

Arthur looks at him. Then he says, “See this tie?” and holds it out so Eames can wrap it around his hand. 

“Yeah,” Eames says. 

“What do you think it’s made of?” 

“Silk?” Eames guesses, sounding bewildered. 

Arthur shakes his head. “It’s made of great boyfriend material. And _that_ , Mr. Eames, is a pickup line.” 

“Oh, my God, you are the worst and I adore you,” says Eames. 

Arthur grins and lets him pull him in by his tie.


	75. Chapter 75

“I’m off,” Arthur says, dropping by the front room. 

Paul and his workers are buzzing all around putting the finishing touches on Eames’s grand vision. Eames is up on a ladder attaching something to the second-floor gallery.

“Ah,” he says, glancing over at Arthur. “Knock ‘em dead, darling.” 

“Please don’t fall and die,” Arthur replies. 

“I’ll try not to,” Eames promises. “Paul will watch me.” 

“Paul?” Arthur calls. 

“I’m on it,” Paul says. “I’ve already told him to get down from there seven times, though.” 

“I believe it,” Arthur says.

“Come here,” Eames says to Arthur, beckoning him, and then begins descending the ladder. 

Arthur dodges all of the construction to reach Eames. “Is this going to be done by tomorrow night?” 

“How many seasons of _Love It or List It_ have we done? Have I ever missed a deadline?”

“No,” Arthur says. 

“No. Never. Not even when the houses flooded or tiny fires were started in the attics.”

“Masterful use of the passive voice,” says Arthur dryly. “Seriously, be careful and listen to Paul, I’ll be very chagrined if you are not all in one piece when I get back.” 

“This is not my first rodeo, as you Americans would say,” Eames says. “Also, that’s a really good fanfic about us, the rodeo AU.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Oh, my God, good-bye.” He leans in for a kiss. 

“Good-bye,” Eames mumbles against his lips. “Work your real-estate-agent magic.” 

“I’ll make them all love it,” says Arthur, and gives Paul a little wave on his way out the door. 

***

Arthur really isn’t nervous until the moment after Mal introduces him to his eight house hunters and he fully grasps that he’s about to be filmed showing seven very different rooms to eight very different people. Who he’s just met. And knows nothing about. And he knows he’s not the one being judged, but still, nobody wants an idiot for a real estate agent, so this means something. 

“Okay,” he says, looking at all of them and forcing his nerves back down into his stomach. They seem like nice people and they’re all smiling at him pleasantly. And he’s a very good real estate agent dressed in a very sharp suit and looking like he knows what he’s doing (which he does). He just has to do it. 

He starts with, “As you know by now probably, the first rule of house-hunting is to keep an open mind.” And he leads them to the first room. 

Misty Rainbow’s hall of mirrors. 

Their reaction is about what you might think. 

One of them says, “Is this a real home show? Or is this _Candid Camera_?” 

“I admit it’s unconventional,” Arthur says, with an easy smile, “but think of how convenient it would be to keep track of kids. You’d never lose them in this house. You could be anywhere and you’d know what they were up to. It’s like the ultimate open floor plan.” 

A few of the house-hunters look at him like he’s insane, but a couple of them look thoughtful and one of them even says out loud, “That’s true…” 

“And extremely hypoallergenic,” says Arthur. “You might be thinking it would be impossible to keep clean, but the truth is here you’d know right away when it needs cleaning. In a more conventional house, the dust finds ways to hide, and if you’re allergic to dust, then you know that’s a bad thing.” 

“You are always saying we can’t have any carpets in the house,” says one house-hunter to his apparent wife. 

“Right, but I wanted hardwoods,” she tells him. 

“But this is a conversation piece!” he replies. 

_Bingo_ , thinks Arthur. “And let me show you something else.” He walks to the center of the room and points to the chandelier over their heads. It’s a pyramid of little mirrored panels. They all look up, and then he says, “Okay, now let’s all look to our lefts.” They do. “How many chandeliers do you see?” asks Arthur. Because of course they see an infinite numbers of chandeliers. Caught between the two mirrors of the walls, the chandelier’s reflections bounce back between each other, stretching forward as far as the eye can see. 

“Wow,” says one of the house-hunters, and Arthur is pleased he thought to try this, because it is a neat effect. This is a weird room, he has to sell them on the novelty of it. 

He says, “You know where else you get an infinite chandelier effect like that?” 

“Where?” asks one of the house-hunters. 

He glances at them, and they all seem to be hanging on the answer. 

“The Palace of Versailles,” he informs them. 

One of them sucks in a breath, and another one whispers to her husband, “It would be like being royalty, right?” 

Arthur relaxes. He’s got the hardest room out of the way and he’s won them over on it. 

Trizz’s room is actually more of a challenge than Misty Rainbow’s was. Arthur works the decadence angle hard. Arthur thinks that they were more convinced by his mirror room spiel; he also thinks that’s the set of people he has here: they liked the perceived classic elegance of the mirror room; they see Trizz’s room as over the top. 

So Arthur plays up the classic mid-century elegance of Gon’s room. He keeps the attention away from the mosaic floor in case it’s polarizing, but they seem to like it, so that’s good. Ariadne’s room shows like a dream and they adore it. They even try out the couches, which is always a good sign in Arthur’s experience. One asks him if the art is for sale. 

They seem bored by Sunny’s room, unpleasantly overwhelmed by Jess’s room, and dully underwhelmed by Scott’s room. 

At the end of it all, Arthur says to them, “Okay, Mal’s going to explain to you how the voting’s going to work, and I want to thank you all for being such lovely company this afternoon. It was a pleasure seeing the rooms through your eyes.” 

Arthur is about to turn them over to Mal when one of them says, “Hey, wait, you really do this stuff, right? Because we really are house hunting.” 

And that is how Arthur gains four new couples as clients with basically Alec Hart to thank for it.


	76. Chapter 76

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep thinking I'm going to catch up on comments and then I keep...not. I'm reading all of them, but I don't always get to respond but I want you to know that I *love* all of them and they've also been super-helpful in helping me decide what I want to happen next in this story (BECAUSE I ONLY HAVE VAGUE IDEAS). (Actually, I think I've settled as to what happens next but, Idk, I've changed my mind a million times now.)
> 
> Anyway: If you wish to fill in the missing chapter with contestant outtakes or something (as someone suggested?), feel free and go for it and I will of course link to it somehow. However, you might want to wait until after I post the viewing party because I have ideas for contestant shenanigans at the viewing party (we'll see if these ideas pan out...)
> 
> Also, I forgot to credit pureimaginatrix for the house-hunters-vote idea. Thank you! I think I may have also forgotten to credit the person who suggested the secret room challenge? At the end, I'm going to do a note of where all the different challenge ideas came from.

“And so then,” Arthur tells Eames, around a mouthful of lo mein, “I pointed out how hypoallergenic all the mirrors were.” 

Arthur is sitting on a picnic blanket laid out in the middle of the construction zone that is their front room. All around them are half-finished playground attractions. Eames is rolling around the picnic blanket in a hysterical fit of laughter. 

“And then I showed off the whole infinite-chandelier Hall-of-Mirrors thing the room had going on. Told all of them living there would be like living in Versailles.” 

“Stop,” gasps Eames, writhing with mirth. “I can’t hear any more.” 

“One of the clients said living in the room would be like being royalty,” says Arthur. 

“Fucking hell,” says Eames, wiping tears away from his eyes, “it was a room made entirely of _mirrors_. _Royalty_.”

“Royalty does stupid, impractical, over-the-top things, as you should know, Viscount,” Arthur points out. 

“People sitting in rooms that are literally indoor playgrounds for grown-ups probably shouldn’t throw stones about other people doing stupid, impractical, over-the-top things,” remarks Eames. 

“Yeah, we’re never going to be able to sell this place,” Arthur says. 

“Are you thinking of moving?” asks Eames. 

“No,” says Arthur, looking down at him where he’s sprawled on his back on the picnic blanket. “Sit up and eat some of this highly nutritious food I brought for you.” 

Eames obeys with a heavy sigh, hunting through the take-out containers until he finds one he wants. “My stomach hurts from laughing. I cannot wait to watch that. I wish I’d tagged along. I should have known you’d be devastatingly brilliant.” 

“Take that, Alec Hart,” says Arthur, satisfied, and stabs a piece of chicken with a chopstick. “So tell me about this place. You didn’t fall off a ladder and kill yourself, so that’s a good sign.” 

“Other things I didn’t do: electrocute myself, flood the room, drop a two-by-four on my head, nail my foot to the floor, saw off my own hand.” 

“So you had a successful day, too,” says Arthur. 

“You’re a prat,” Eames tells him. 

“That’s some weird British word I don’t understand,” says Arthur. 

“It means ‘royal prince who’d like to live in a mirrored room and preen all day whilst eating lots of Chinese takeaway.’”

“Oddly specific word.” 

“That’s British English for you. Dead useful like that. Speaking of mirrored rooms.” 

“Hmm?” asks Arthur, twirling some noodles up into his mouth. 

“Probably your sex club should have an entirely mirrored room.” 

“I thought this was my sex club.” Arthur waves his chopsticks around the room. “I don’t see any mirrors.” 

“I know.” Eames looks crestfallen. “I tried to change the design but Paul went a little off the rails on me. Talk about dramatic. _He’s_ dramatic. Mal should get him to be a judge. You’d think it’s unheard of for people to work through the night on the semi-impossible demands of lunatic designers. His words.” 

Arthur’s mouth twitches. Eames looks seriously distressed by Paul’s unreasonableness so Arthur doesn’t want to upset him further. But Arthur can just imagine what pie-in-the-sky things Eames was asking for. “Did Paul have to explain the laws of physics to you again?” 

“I keep trying to explain to him that laws are mostly made to be broken. Scaredy-cat spoilsport. I don’t even want to get into all the permitting nonsense he tried to educate me on.” Eames shudders. 

“Aw,” says Arthur. “What a dreadful, practicality-ridden day it sounds like you had. What can we do to fix it?” 

“Gravity-defying sex,” suggests Eames. 

“Tall order,” says Arthur. “We might have to settle for just garden-variety gravitationally-pulled sex.” 

“Fine,” sighs Eames. “If we _have to_.” 

Arthur expertly uses a chopstick to fling a piece of chicken at Eames. 

“And now you’re throwing things at me,” says Eames, looking unamused. 

“Demonstrating gravity,” says Arthur, and launches a piece of chicken up above them, aiming for the skylight-dotted ceiling two stories up. “What goes up, must come down.” The piece of chicken lands between them with a splat. “Like you, on a ladder.” 

“I’m more interesting in getting it up so you can go down.” 

“Better than your usual double entendres.” 

“Thank you. Oh! You know what came today? Our _hats_.” 

“Oh, good. I was worried we’d demand everyone come to our party in hats and we’d end up having to grab baseball caps out of the closet at the last minute.” Then Arthur narrows his eyes. “Did you peek?” 

“I did not peek. I was a perfect angel. I made Paul be witness. I said, ‘Paul, here is the box containing my dearest Arthur’s hat for tomorrow night’s party. We promised each other we would keep our hats surprises from each other, so note my incredible maturity in giving you this box for safe keeping.’”

“So you’re saying that Paul has my hat?” 

“It was the safest way, darling. He’ll bring it to you tomorrow. And then will you model it for me?” 

“If you like. Will you model yours for me?” 

“Deal. We’ll have very enthusiastic hat-sex while Paul and the crew put the finishing touches on this place.” 

“You didn’t make that sound very appealing.” 

Eames shrugs. “Well, whatever, you won’t do the gravity-defying sex thing, so, you know, there.” 

Arthur shakes his head because sometimes Eames makes no sense to him but it doesn’t matter, he still loves him anyway. Arthur breaks open a fortune cookie and reads out loud. “If you allow your imagination to guide you, your life will know no limits. Ha.” He tosses the fortune away and adds, “In bed,” before eating the fortune cookie. 

“Are you happy?” Eames asks abruptly, startling him.

Arthur looks away from his absent contemplation of the shadows Eames’s slide casts over the marble floor. Eames is sitting cross-legged with a takeout container in his lap and he looks oddly earnest about the question. “What? Yes. Of course I am.” 

“You’ve stopped whistling,” Eames points out. 

“Oh. But the whistling was never…I’m happy. Look.” He whistles a bar of _Yankee Doodle_ for Eames’s benefit. 

“I’m serious here,” Eames says, almost pouting. “You were so happy the other day and then everything with Alec happened and I felt terrible because you had been _so happy_ and it’s fine, if you want to go back to the base level of happiness you had before, but I liked it when you were whistling, okay? I know that makes me greedy but I liked you like that and I was going to keep you like that forever and look, I couldn’t even make it last a whole twenty-four hours.” 

“Hey,” says Arthur, because Eames does look alarmingly glum over the contents of his takeout container. “That wasn’t you. You always make me happy enough to whistle. It’s the rest of the world.” 

“I know. Sorry. I said that I know it makes me greedy.” 

“Look at me,” Arthur commands, because he hates when Eames gets defensive enough to avoid his gaze. Eames almost never does that, is usually more direct than any ordinary person could stand. 

Eames looks at him. 

Arthur holds his gaze and carefully whistles the _Love It or List It_ theme. 

It punches the laugh out of Eames in an almost reluctant huff. 

Arthur pushes food out of the way to close the distance between them. “I’m happy,” he says, and kisses Eames. “Are you happy?” 

“Yes,” says Eames. 

“Even with the laws of physics?” 

Eames smiles then, and Arthur is relieved to see the curve of his lips. 

“There you are,” Arthur says. “I like it better when you’re smiling.” 

“Same,” says Eames, lifting a hand up to press his thumb into Arthur’s left dimple. 

Arthur whistles _If You’re Happy and You Know It_.


	77. Chapter 77

The day of the party is a frantic clusterfuck.

“No,” says Arthur, standing at the front door where once upon a time, in more innocent days, he told Alec he ran a sex club and started this whole debacle. Arthur shakes his head violently and says again, “No, no, no. Take them back.” 

“Sorry,” says the delivery person. “Are you Mr. Eames?”

“I am not. But I am qualified to speak for him when I say—”

“Wait!” shouts Eames, barreling through the ongoing construction zone behind Arthur. “I ordered these,” he explains to Arthur, as if that’s the problem, as if Arthur was turning the guy away because he thought the guy had the wrong house. 

“I figured,” Arthur tells him. “I don’t think there’s anyone else in the entire universe who would order three dozen pigeons.” 

“They’re technically doves,” says the delivery-person. 

“They look just like pigeons,” says Arthur. 

“That was the point,” says Eames. “Although technically pigeons and doves are mostly the same thing. They both belong to the bird clade Columbidae.”

Arthur stares at him. 

“Wikipedia,” explains Eames. “And hear me out on this.” 

“Are those real birds?” asks Arthur calmly, gesturing to the cooing pigeons-doves-whatever-they-are in their cages on their front stoop. 

“Yes,” says Eames. 

“Do you intend for them to be real birds inside our house?” 

“Yes,” says Eames. 

“No,” says Arthur. “There. I have heard you out.”

“But playgrounds have pigeons, darling! Have you ever been to a playground that didn’t have pigeons? You are going to jeopardize the verisimilitude of—”

“Eames, our playground has a mosh pit,” says Arthur, stabbing his finger toward the little cordoned-off area Eames has put in front of the dee-jay table. 

“Actually I’m calling it a ‘nosh pit,’ because we’re going to set up the food there before the dancing starts. Clever, right?” Eames looks like he thinks Arthur is going to be proud of this. 

Arthur says, “I cannot do puns with you right now. I do not even understand when this party got itself a dee-jay. What I will say is that there will not be live birds in this house because live birds tend to come with the byproducts of all living creatures, and not only is that unsanitary in a party where you are serving food, it is, quite simply, disgusting.” Arthur turns to the delivery person. “No. No birds. Sorry for your trouble. Eames is going to tip you generously. Thank you.” Arthur gives Eames a warning look as he walks away. 

Eames scowls at him. 

Arthur decides he will simply have to wear the mantle of party-pooper because he is not dealing with _live birds_ , Jesus Christ, Eames has lost his fucking mind—Arthur has to dodge around a few of the contracting crew abruptly tumbling out of the bottom of the slide. 

“Sorry,” one says to him, from their laughing tangled heap. 

“Had to test it out,” another says. 

Arthur needs his office and a moment of zen, he thinks. 

“Oh, there you are,” Paul says, hurrying over to him. 

“Don’t tell me he actually found a boa constrictor to guard our house,” says Arthur. 

Paul looks alarmed. “What?”

“Never mind. Eames is turning away the pigeons he ordered, if you’re looking for him.”

Paul shakes his head. “Looking for you. Here’s your hat.” 

“Oh.” Arthur had actually forgotten all about the hat. He accepts the box happily. “Thanks.” 

“Paul, how many pounds did you say this swing set had to hold up?” calls someone from where they’re working on the swing set in the corner. 

“Christ,” sighs Arthur. “When do you think this is going to be done?” 

“In plenty of time for you to decorate,” Paul promises. 

“Decorate,” echoes Arthur blankly. He thought this _was_ the decoration. 

“Darling,” Eames calls from behind him, and Paul looks relieved to take the opportunity to scurry away. 

Arthur turns to Eames, saying, “What decorations? There are more decorations?” 

“I probably should have cleared the pigeons with you,” is what Eames says. 

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. “Probably.” 

“There are no more live animals coming. I promise.” 

“No more live animals,” Arthur repeats suspiciously. “Are there dead animals coming?” 

“No.” Eames shakes his head. 

“What about live other things? Live insects?” 

“I’ve got some live plants coming and maybe those will have insects on them or in them but that’s out of my control.” 

“Live plants. Those are for decoration?” 

“Yes, otherwise this would be positively Spartan in here, darling.” 

Arthur looks around them. There’s a swing set in one corner, a slide in another corner, a twirling, spinning sort of thing in another corner, and a jungle gym crowded with ropes and ladders and monkey bars in the last corner. There’s a climbing wall and a dee-jay stage and a mosh-pit-slash-nosh-pit and several big white screens thrown all over the place for projecting the show onto. Arthur looks back at Eames and says, “You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘Spartan.’”

“I have a proposal,” Eames says. 

“Is the proposal canceling the party? Because I am all ears for that proposal.” 

“I think you should go get a massage.” 

Arthur is sure he didn’t hear that correctly. Probably because someone is welding metal over by the swings. “You think I should what?”

“I already called the spa down the street and paid them frankly quite a bit of money to find an opening for you and you should get a massage and maybe also a facial and lay there in a robe with some cucumber slices or whatever the hell it is you do when you spend those pampering days at the spa and when you come back this will be transformed into an utterly gorgeous playground and you will have nothing to say but, ‘Eames, you sexy and talented beast, take me right here on our jungle gym.’”

Arthur boggles at him. “What the fuck sort of world does your head think you live in?” 

“Look, you’re never around for the last day of the show, you don’t understand that this is how it always is. You’re thinking this is absolute chaos and I’ve lost my mind but this is just designing to a deadline and you will be much happier if you go and get a massage and come back and it’s all done, just like in the show, and you can just, you know, love it.” 

To be honest, the temptation to flee this cacophonous madhouse is almost overwhelming. But… “If I wasn’t here, you would have had pigeons in here.”

“If it’s any consolation, I would have seen fairly quickly that the pigeons weren’t doable and I would have had them out of here before you got home, so you would never have even known that was a possibility.” 

Arthur tries to imagine what other insane design idea Eames could have in his crazy genius head, but the truth is he can’t imagine, that’s what makes Eames so talented. He can’t imagine what will go wrong here in his absence. 

“Think of the spa,” cajoles Eames. “Think of how dim and soothing and quiet it will be there. Think of the…aromatherapy…and…the calming music they play there.” Eames strings together a series of _la la la_ s. 

“What is that?” asks Arthur. 

“The music they play at the spa, I think.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “I really do want to live in your head.” 

“You live in my rooms, and that’s almost the same thing.” 

“Yes,” sighs Arthur, and looks around their front room. “Fuck,” he says, because he knows Eames will transform this disaster area into something amazing, too, and he’s really just getting in the way. “Fine. I’ll go. Do _not_ burn down our house, do you hear me?” 

“I usually strive not to do that,” says Eames, very seriously.


	78. Chapter 78

Arthur is something of a regular at the spa. He doesn’t have a standing appointment or anything but he likes spas and this is the nearest one so he goes to it fairly often. Eames is right that Arthur finds spas soothing and calming and centering. Sometimes he can find life with Eames a little…noisy. Sometimes he needs to be somewhere dim and quiet with relaxing music. Apparently Eames doesn’t suffer from this impulse, which is just beyond Arthur. What is not to love about just lying back in a warm, cozy room that smells of lavender while you have soothing cucumber slices on your tired eyes? 

He and Eames are some kind of minor celebrities and so they’re known within the neighborhood just generally and so Arthur is not at all surprised when the woman giving him his facial clucks and says, “Look at these shadows under your eyes. That show is working you too hard.” 

Arthur merely hums in agreement and is pretty sure he dozes off for a bit. 

When he’s done with his facial and his massage, he feels like an entirely new person. He texts Eames that he’s on the way home and walks back the few blocks to their house. It’s a beautiful, gorgeous, early spring day, with the air bright and crisp and clear, and Arthur takes deep breaths and feels almost like he could skip. He deliberately enters the house through the back door because he doesn’t want the chaos of the front of the house to destroy his newfound equilibrium. 

Eames is standing in the kitchen waiting for him. 

“Hello,” he says. “Good time at the spa?”

Arthur whistles something jaunty-sounding, and Eames laughs, and Arthur kisses him hello. “Good suggestion,” he says. “It is so incredibly _quiet_ here.” 

“We are done,” Eames says. “We’re ready to go. Do you want to see it?” 

“Can I have a sneak peek?” asks Arthur, delighted. 

“Of course. You’re my muse. I designed it all for you. I only ever design for you.” 

“When you say things like that, it makes up for how also sometimes you want to have live birds all over our house,” says Arthur, and lets Eames lead him to the front room. 

If Arthur hadn’t been there himself just a few hours earlier, he would never have believed it was the same place. All of the playground bits from earlier are still in place, and they no longer like pieces of insanity flung over a room; they look like they’re part of an organic whole. The middle of the room has been given over to an inflated bouncy house that’s had white fabric tied onto the sides, presumably so that it can be used as a projection screen. There are park benches pushed up against the side walls, under the overhang of the gallery, and the lighting is mainly lampposts scattered through the room, with a few strings of star-shaped lights up around the second-floor gallery. Eames hasn’t just brought in live plants; they are basically live _trees_. Short-ish trees, but definitely trees. They’ve been deposited all over the room, their branches arching out and shading little seating areas that Eames has provided. It is just like walking into a playground, but an impossibly elegant playground. 

“You like it?” asks Eames. 

“ _Eames_ ,” says Arthur, turning to him. “Are you an actual wizard? You are, aren’t you?” 

Eames just smiles at him. “So you like it?” 

“I love it. I cannot believe you pulled that off. I thought it was going to be…not this. This is amazing. It’s…Is that a willow tree? Seriously, you’ve got a whole willow tree in here!” And, Arthur finds, when you part the willow tree’s branches, you reach a dimly lit enchanted little grotto. 

“That’s the snogging spot,” Eames says. 

“Who’s going to be ‘snogging’ in it?” asks Arthur. 

“Probably us,” Eames suggests hopefully. 

“Damn straight us,” says Arthur, and pulls him in for a hard kiss. “This is amazing,” he pants into his mouth. “You’re amazing. You’re a sexy and talented beast and you should take me on our jungle gym.” 

Eames laughs and says, “After the party. I don’t want to ruin the tableau.” 

“Wow, look at you, being all professional,” Arthur says fondly. “Do you want to see my hat?” 

“Yes!” exclaims Eames. “And for once I hope that’s not a euphemism.” 

“Stay here,” Arthur says. “Give me ten minutes.” 

Eames frowns. “Ten minutes? What the hell kind of hat is it?” 

“I’ve got to get the box open.” 

“What the hell kind of _box_ is it?” 

“Ten minutes,” Arthur calls to him, jogging out of the room. 

“The caterers are coming!” Eames calls back. 

“Fine!” Arthur amends in a shout over his shoulder. “Five minutes!” 

His hat box is in the walk-in closet where he’d left it, still unopened. He tears through it with his house key and then lifts the top hat out of the box. It’s a gorgeous top hat, brushed and gleaming, and Arthur has always wanted a top hat so he’s pleased. But he sets the top hat aside and strips himself out of everything he’s wearing, until he’s completely naked. And then he reaches into the box and pulls out the other hat he’d ordered. He puts the fedora on his head and goes into the bathroom to check his reflection. 

Not bad, he thinks. For a man wearing a fedora. 

Then he goes to the bed and throws aside all of the pillows and their fancy and probably very expensive bedspread. And then he sprawls on the bed, naked except for his fedora. 

Eames knocks and calls through the door, “Your five minutes are up.” 

“You can come in,” says Arthur. 

Eames opens the door and steps in and then pauses and just looks at him for a second. 

Arthur says, “This, I think, is how you wear a fucking fedora.” 

Eames growls when he pounces onto the bed with him. 

The hat is completely destroyed but Arthur thinks it was still worth every penny.


	79. Chapter 79

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated thank-you to lolllie and pureimaginatrix and RighteousHate for the nosh-pit idea. 
> 
> And I think the idea for Eames's Willy Wonka hat came from Rereader3 and deadgloves, I think.

Arthur is in the process of choosing the evening’s suit, finding just the right mix of playfulness for a party in an adult playground, and Eames says, “What do you think of my hat?” and Arthur tilts his way out of the closet to find Eames striding around their bedroom naked except for the Willy Wonka hat on his head. 

“A Willy Wonka hat?” Arthur says. “That’s what you went with? A Willy Wonka hat?” 

“Darling, don’t you love it?” asks Eames, grinning at him. 

“Tell me you don’t have the rest of the outfit.” 

Eames laughs. “I don’t. I’m figuring pictures from this little soiree are going to get out and I don’t want to look like a Willy Wonka cosplayer.” 

“And you don’t think the hat accomplishes that?” 

“Nope, the hat is just the right touch.” 

Arthur shakes his head and says, “Fine. Take a shower and get dressed and I’m going to go deal with the caterers.” 

“And the a/v people,” Eames calls from the bathroom. “It is a _viewing_ party, after all.” 

Arthur finishes dressing and then lets himself into the bathroom to check his reflection and decides he really likes what he’s wearing and he really likes the top hat. 

“Don’t you look dashing?” Eames says from the shower. 

“Thank you,” says Arthur, and winks at Eames in the mirror. 

“We match,” Eames says in delight, gesturing to Arthur’s hat. “Except yours is black and mine is brown.” 

“And that’s such a weird encapsulation of our relationship,” muses Arthur. “We match, only I’m classic and tasteful and you’re…kind of like a burnt orange.” 

“Darling, it proves we’re meant to be together,” says Eames solemnly. 

“Other things prove that,” remarks Arthur, “but we’ll go with the hats tonight,” and then he goes off to supervise the caterers. 

Everything is going perfectly according to plan. Probably because Eames is still getting ready and hasn’t arrived with any weird last-minute requests. Arthur is happily trying all of the hors d’oeuvres the caterers are putting out and giving really bad answers to the a/c guys’ questions about the technology set-up. 

The doorbell rings, and Arthur checks his watch. Slightly early. Who would be slightly early? If it’s fucking Alec, Arthur will not be responsible for his actions. And where is Eames anyway?

It’s not Alec. It’s Mal and Cobb. 

Mal air-kisses his cheeks and says, “Oh, is this Eames’s work? Isn’t it gorgeous? Are you sure you won’t let me film?” 

“Take pictures and put it on your Instagram,” Arthur says and then to Cobb, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I’m Mal’s plus-one,” Cobb explains, cheeks pink. 

“Huh,” says Arthur. “So it’s going well, is it?” 

“No,” says Mal breezily. “It’s terrible. But I tolerate him for now.” Mal drifts off to take pictures of Eames’s playground. 

Cobb says, sounding dreamy, “She’s something else, isn’t she?” 

“I’m not sure I want to know any more,” says Arthur swiftly. 

“Mal! And Cobb! What an unexpected surprise!” says Eames, striding into the room. 

He’s wearing terrible pants and a terrible shirt and Arthur wants to ask why it took so long for him to put _that_ outfit on. 

“This is, you know, the first time I’ve been invited to your house,” Cobb points out, giving them both A Look. 

“Is it?” says Eames cheerfully. “Hello, Mal, don’t you look lovely?” he calls to Mal, who’s on the other side of the room. “I love your hat.” 

Mal’s “hat” is a little gathering of peacock feathers behind her ear. It’s appropriately Mal. She of course makes it looks devastatingly chic. 

“Eames, dear heart, come and brag about your lovely design!” Mal calls back. 

“Excuse me,” Eames says, and manages to kiss Arthur’s cheek without knocking either of their hats off. 

“Where’s your hat?” Arthur asks Cobb. 

“I thought that was just for _Next Big Thing_ people,” Cobb says. 

The doorbell rings again, and it’s Ariadne. 

“Hi,” she says brightly. “I know I’m early but I kind of couldn’t wait to get to see your house oh my God did Eames do this?” She is staring around herself, looking dazed. 

“Hi,” Arthur says, studying her hat, which is an incredible affair of dangling fishing rods and dog bones and flags and pinwheels and candy canes, topped off by a potted flower. “That’s quite a hat.” 

“It’s the Go Dog Go hat,” Ariadne says absently. “Fuck, he’s good. Do you just die every day over how good he is?” moans Ariadne dramatically. 

Apparently she has not yet gotten over Eames’s design. Arthur closes the door and says wryly, “Some days are better than others. Do you know Dominic Cobb?” 

“Ariadne!” shouts Eames from across the room. 

“Eames!” Ariadne shouts back. “What is this _design_?” 

“Do you like it?” 

“I hate it, you fucking show-off,” Ariadne complains, going over to him and giving him a playful shove. 

Arthur looks at Cobb. “What’s the Go Dog Go hat?” 

Cobb shrugs. “Don’t you have any alcohol at this party?” 

As if on cue, a waiter arrives and presses champagne into their hands. Arthur is careful about sipping it. He knows he’s a notorious lightweight but he also feels like he’s never going to make it through this entire party—including the viewing of the episode—without alcohol. 

Trizz arrives with a black veil obscuring his entire face and falling down to the tips of his toes. Arthur thinks it’s appropriately dramatic. 

Sunny wears a lovely, wide-brimmed straw hat that she’s threaded through with pretty pale pink ribbons. It’s nice and cheerful for her, and Arthur, remembering how sad she was during the episode, praises her. Sunny smiles, and smiles even more when Eames comes over and is his usual gallant self and coaxes her into trying the swing set. 

Scott comes in a baseball cap and says, “Huh. So people took this hat thing seriously. Oops.” 

Arthur feels like it’s the kind of thing he would do, so he tells Scott what the best hors d’oeuvres are. 

Jess wears a fascinator with huge gold feathers floating above her head. 

Misty Rainbow arrives in a turban that, she informs Arthur, is made entirely of newspapers. “Very environmentally friendly,” she explains. “I raided people’s recycling for it.” 

“So your hat is literally made of other people’s garbage?” Arthur clarifies. 

“Of course,” says Misty Rainbow. 

“Of course,” Arthur agrees. 

Gon arrives in one of those pointy hats with a pom-pom on top. “Party hat,” he says, pointing to it. “Isn’t that what you said?” 

“I appreciate your literalism,” says Arthur. 

Julia arrives in a pillbox hat that makes her look like Jackie Kennedy. 

When Arthur tells her that, she says, “Aw, and you’ve got the top hat like JFK. We _match_.” 

“Eames thinks I match with him,” says Arthur. 

“Why’s his hat, like, orange? Oh, I get it. Because he’s the more colorful one?” 

“I told him it was orange. It’s actually a Willy Wonka hat.” 

“He’s got a weird thing for Willy Wonka, huh?” 

“Let’s not talk about it,” Arthur says. 

“It must be very painful for you,” Julia says sympathetically. 

“You have no idea.” 

“Is Yusuf here yet?” 

“Not yet. Grab some champagne and stand around looking cool and Jackie-Kennedy-esque and I’ll direct him to you.” 

“See, this is why you’re my favorite.” 

“I’m the best,” says Arthur, and then, “I’m quoting Eames there. That was meant to be, like, a call-back to our show. I’m going to stop drinking now.” 

Julia grins at him before moving off toward the nosh pit. 

Not that Arthur is actually going to call it the nosh pit. 

Then Yusuf arrives in a cowboy hat. 

“Yippee-ki-yay or whatever,” says Yusuf, waving his hand around. 

“Very in character,” says Arthur. “I’m very impressed.” 

“Is there alcohol at this party?” 

“Yes. Oh, and look, Julia is also at the alcohol.” 

Yusuf gives him a strange look as he moves off. 

“Look at you, match-making,” says Eames, suddenly inching up behind him. 

“Hi,” Arthur says to him. “I thought you were off drinking in everyone’s adulation.” 

“Yeah, but I’m going to do that the rest of the night, so I figured I’d pace myself.” 

“Good plan,” Arthur deadpans. 

“Sooooooo.” Eames purses his lips and looks around the room. The playground theme seems to be a hit. “Everyone’s here, huh?” 

Arthur enjoys the studied innocence with which Eames asks the question. “Not Alec.” 

“Maybe he’s not coming.”

“All that worrying for nothing,” Arthur says, and clinks his champagne flute against Eames’s and then downs it, because what the fuck, now he can celebrate. 

Then the doorbell rings. 

“Oh, fuck, it’s like he has me bugged so he can always arrive just when I’m happiest,” Arthur complains. 

“Go off and stake us out a couch for the show, I’ll handle this one,” Eames suggests. 

“No,” says Arthur firmly. “I can at least say hi like I did to everyone else.” Arthur swings open their front door and there is Alec in a fucking _crown_ and Arthur wants to know why he has to make it so hard for Arthur to tolerate him. But Arthur just downed a bunch of champagne and it’s fizzy and effervescent in his bloodstream and he just says, “Hi, Alec! Welcome! Just in time for the show!” 

Alec blinks at him as if he’s crazy. 

Arthur says, “I’m giving the slide a try,” and makes his escape.


	80. Chapter 80

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to dracoxlovesxharry for reminding me that Ariadne was on the Dr. Seuss team. I went with the Go Dog Go hat for her just because I always think of Go Dog Go when I think about hats. ;-)

“Can I crash your seating area?” asks Ariadne. Well, asks Ariadne’s hat, because that’s all Arthur can really see of her. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, because he’s all alone in the seating area at the moment. Eames is God knows where. 

Ariadne settles next to him and says, “Is that a velvet plaid suit?” 

“Yeah, but I wear it well.” 

“You do at that,” says Ariadne, and tips her glass against his. “How are you doing, Arthur? Tell your guardian pixie sprite everything.” 

“Are you drunk already?” asks Arthur, amused. 

“Getting there.” 

“Your tweets are going to be quite something.” 

“Oh, are we tweeting this whole thing?” 

“I think—” Arthur begins. 

Eames cuts him off. Well, the feedback from Eames stealing the dee-jay’s microphone cuts him off. Eames says, “Hello, and welcome, and we’ve got two minutes until showtime, so everybody should grab a drink and a seat and remember, you are encourage to livetweet your viewing!” 

“Is there room for more in this seating area?” asks Gon. 

Arthur is mostly relieved it’s not Alec. “Sure,” he says, because there’s plenty of room. 

“Oh,” says Ariadne, sounding flustered. “Yeah. Sure. I—”

“Is that the Go Dog Go hat?” 

Ariadne looks pleased. “Yes. I wanted to go with Dr. Seuss because I was on Team Eames but the Cat in the Hat was just too obvious, you know?” 

“I love it.” Gon gives her an easy smile. 

Arthur looks curiously between the two of them, wondering if Ariadne is blushing. 

Eames clambers over the back of the couch to land inelegantly next to Arthur. 

“You couldn’t have gone around?” Arthur asks him. 

“I wanted to make an entrance. Hello,” he says to Ariadne and Gon. 

“Can we crash your viewing party?” Gon asks. 

“Only if you’re Team Armes,” says Eames.

Ariadne starts typing on her phone, saying, “Team Armes forever!” 

“You are my favorite,” Eames tells her. 

“Hey, I can be Team Armes, too,” says Gon. 

“You are my favorite, too,” Eames tells him. 

“Except for how we’re totally impartial judges,” adds Arthur. 

“Doesn’t he look dashing tonight?” Eames asks Gon and Ariadne. “I’m hoping he lets me take him home.” 

“Only if you’ve gotten better pick-up lines,” says Arthur. 

“He lies, I’ve got killer pick-up lines,” Eames assures Gon and Ariadne. 

“This is the banter, huh?” asks Gon. 

“This is the famous banter,” Eames confirms. “How would you rate it?” 

“A+,” says Gon. 

“My favorite,” Eames says, and leans forward to clink their glasses together. 

“Hey, I give it an A+, too,” protests Ariadne. 

“Also my favorite,” says Eames. 

“Is everyone already drunk except for me?” asks Arthur. 

“It’s really good champagne,” says Ariadne. 

“Are you enjoying the food?” Eames asks Gon and Ariadne. “Do you like the healthy options? Arthur insisted on healthy options.” 

At that moment, blessedly, the voice over the speakers announces, _Last time on Next Big Thing!_

One of the moments they show is Arthur spitting out at Alec, “Sometimes it’s just sex. Just two people and the proper parts and no deeper meaning whatsoever. You don’t want to argue with me about this,” and the crowd in the room cheers, and Arthur thinks, _Oh, Christ, here we go_ and is glad he thought to get a fresh new glass of champagne before it started.


	81. Chapter 81

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you belatedly to pureimaginatrix, who inspired the plaid velvet suit Arthur's wearing. 
> 
> Thank you also to ladyprydian, deadgloves, and scribblscrabbl, all of whom made observations about celery similar to Ariadne's.

They’re projecting the episode as well as a livestream of Twitter’s #nextbigthing hashtag. But Arthur sits next to Eames and tracks his own #arthur4everything tag, because he knows that’s likely to be nice to him and the overall tag frightens him. 

The episode starts with the bit of banter between him and Eames about what celery is and how it shouldn’t be used as a floor. The conversation’s been heavily edited to leave out all the relationship stuff and Arthur’s relieved. Nor is there anything in there about how he’s trying to be the bigger person with Alec. Arthur thinks maybe that bodes well for the rest of the episode. Everyone in the room laughs pleasantly over the innocuous conversation and Eames tweets _#eamesnot4vegetables_ and Arthur tweets _#arthurnot4celeryfloors_. Ariadne tweets something about how celery is best as a delivery system for cream cheese. 

As far as Arthur can tell from the scrolling tweets he steals a glance at, Alec doesn’t tweet anything at all. 

The celery conversation may have been edited but any hope Arthur had that the rest of the episode would be similarly cleansed of the inter-judge soap opera is eliminated by the fact that Mal’s left in basically Arthur’s entire olive branch speech to Alec. Arthur watches himself and wants to die, because he totally looks smug and vindictive and no wonder Alec rebuffed him. 

The Internet—well, his tag on Twitter, at least—seems to disagree. 

_Awww, how sweet is Arthur? #arthur4reconciliation #arthur4everything_

_Arthur is a better person than I am. #arthur4workingwithexes_

Finally one of them raises the issue that worried Alec: _What’s Arthur up to with this? #arthur4suspiciousbehavior_

Eames must be reading over Arthur’s shoulder because he suddenly reaches out and takes the phone away. 

“Hey,” Arthur protests. 

Eames presses his lips against Arthur’s ear and murmurs, “They’re strangers on the Internet and it doesn’t matter, right?”

“I know that,” Arthur says defensively. 

On the screen, Alec says, “What about the fact that I used to (beep) your boyfriend?” 

“Well,” responds screen Arthur, “that’s tempered by the fact that he’s not (beep)ing you now.” 

There are general gasps from all the people watching all around them. Arthur wants to sink directly through the couch. There’s an ancient, damp, gross basement underneath this room; he can just hang out there for the rest of the episode, he thinks. 

Ariadne hisses, “Mal left that in?” 

Arthur is still talking on the screen. He’s saying something about feeling the joy of the occasion _here_. There are a few snorts of laughter around the room. Arthur pulls the top hat down so that it covers his face. 

“So this olive branch on my part has worked out really well,” remarks Arthur on the screen. “Good to know.” 

The show goes to commercial. 

Eames says, “Darling, you’re not the one who came across looking bad there.” 

“Eames, do you love me?” asks Arthur from behind his hat. 

“You know I do.” 

“I need you to do something for me.” Arthur tips his hat aside a little so one eye can make out Eames. “I need you to kill Mal.” 

“Oh, I’m going to do that for _me_ ,” says Eames. 

“It’s not really surprising, though,” remarks Gon. “I mean, she’s been editing the show this way all along.” 

“But we are having a _party_ ,” whisper-shouts Arthur. “And Alec is somewhere _right in this room_.” 

“Christ, this is going to get worse before it gets better,” says Eames. “We need more champagne.” 

“Oh!” exclaims Ariadne. “Can I have some more, too?” 

“I’ll bring us a bottle,” says Eames as he gets up. 

Arthur snags his phone back from him. 

Eames gives him a warning look. 

Arthur says, “I am _fine_.”

“You’re hiding behind a top hat,” Eames points out, and says to Ariadne, “Watch him, GPS.” 

“Got it covered,” Ariadne says, and gives Eames a little salute. Then, after Eames has walked away, she says to Arthur, “What am I watching?” 

“Me having a nervous breakdown,” Arthur says, scrolling through his phone. 

“Really, Arthur, he’s the one who should be embarrassed,” says Gon. 

“Yeah, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Ariadne says. 

Arthur is ashamed of the fact that he got out of bed that morning, basically. His Twitter tag is supportive, but he would have expected that of his Twitter tag. 

_Oh, wow, Alec, way to be a dick, huh? #teamarthur4eva_

_Does Arthur need comforting? I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE. #arthur4everything_

_Oh, Alec, are you being mean to Arthur? DO NOT BE MEAN TO ARTHUR._

_WHO COULD DENY ARTHUR WHEN HE LOOKS LIKE THAT? LOOK AT THOSE EYES. LOOK AT THOSE DIMPLES. #alecisanidiot_

_I’d let Arthur give me an olive branch anytime. If you know what I mean_ , with a gif of Eames leering. 

Arthur hesitantly scrolls over to the more general tag. There are a few people who didn’t seem to realize that Eames and Alec had a history, and Arthur wonders where those people have been hiding. But most people seem to think Alec was overreacting, even here in the general tag. 

Ariadne seems to be monitoring Twitter as well. “Not so bad, right?” 

“I think this is all going to get worse,” says Arthur mournfully. 

“Worse than that?” Gon looks bewildered. “What else did you say to him that could be worse than that?” 

Arthur gives him a look and then pulls his hat back over his face.


	82. Chapter 82

It gets worse immediately. The editing goes from Alec scowling to Arthur beaming as he reads out the challenge, and Arthur is sure that he comes across as disgustingly obnoxious. He can’t even bring himself to read his own tag. 

And, amazingly, it gets even worse when the show shifts to focus on the contestants. Arthur can brace himself for the things he was present for but he’s completely blindsided by the level of complaining that a lot of the contestants do over the challenge. 

“I mean, it’s stupid, isn’t it?” says Misty Rainbow. “We’re going to have clients, we’re not going to have to sell houses, it’s just such needless consumerism.” 

Arthur wishes he’d been less brilliant with selling her room. 

“You know this challenge only exists because of Arthur,” says Jess. “I mean, he’s a nice guy and all that but he’s not a designer.” 

“She’s dead to me,” mumbles Eames. 

“It’s the editing,” Gon says. “People were complaining, but it wasn’t as bad as they’re making it look.” 

And at least the complaining is eventually juxtaposed by Ariadne and Gon and Scott really throwing themselves into the task. Gon and Ariadne are especially helpful because of their interviews. Gon talks about how important it is to understand how to appeal to lots of different people and how everyone knows Arthur’s really good at his job so they’re fortunate to be able to learn some tips from him. Ariadne talks about how she thinks this is good practice for seeing designs through other people’s eyes, especially because this show has proven to her how different everyone’s opinions can be and she thinks Arthur’s very skillful at representing a middle ground. 

Eames, during the commercial break, says, “See, I knew you two were my favorites.” 

“That’s what they’re going to say,” says Arthur mournfully. “We’re all playing favorites.” 

“Well,” Ariadne points out reasonably, “if you’ve got favorites, so does Alec.” 

Arthur drops backward so he can sprawl out on his back and fit his hat more firmly over his face. This happens to put his head in Eames’s lap, so it has its advantages. “I’m not drunk,” he announces to the inside of his hat. “I am in despair.” 

“I think this challenge is utterly pointless,” says Alec on the television screen. 

“Boo,” says Ariadne, softly but Arthur is pretty sure Alec could be able to hear her, wherever he is. 

“What do you think about the challenge?” comes Yusuf’s off-camera voice, and Arthur responds. Including his bit about fedoras being pointless. 

There are chuckles around the room, not just from Ariadne and Gon, and Arthur takes heart in the idea that people seem to think he’s funny, at least. 

Eames says on the episode, “I think all challenges are good. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that,” and that gets laughs, too. 

Arthur listens to himself ask Alec how he’s doing, and Alec snaps, “Go to hell,” and Ariadne breathes out, “Jesus, though, what is his _problem_?”

“Twitter wants to know that, too,” murmurs Eames, and Arthur knows that’s for his benefit, and he’s pleased. 

Arthur listens to them judge Misty Rainbow’s room. It’s tense but it’s nothing compared to what’s coming, Arthur knows. 

Alec gives Arthur his condescending speech about real estate agents being sticks in the mud. 

“Twitter is going ballistic,” Eames mumbles at Arthur. “On your side.” 

On the episode Arthur fires back. Arthur sprawls with his face in his hat and listens to himself talk. 

There’s silence in the wake of it. 

And then applause actually breaks out in the room around him. _Applause_. 

Arthur has no idea what to make of it. 

Ariadne pushes his hat off of his head and kisses his forehead. “You’re fucking awesome,” she tells him. 

Arthur blinks at her in bewilderment. 

Eames thrusts his phone at him, and Twitter has exploded with positivity. 

_Can we get a mic drop? #arthur4micdrop_

_TELL HIM, ARTHUR. #arthur4micdrop_

_How is Eames not making out with him right now? #arthur4micdrop #eames4incrediblewillpower_

_#ARTHUR4MICDROP #ARTHUR4EVERYTHING_

_THERE’S MY ARTHUR. LOVE YOU, BB. #arthur4everything #arthur4micdrop_

Arthur scrolls through the tweets while on-screen they head into Trizz’s room and Arthur tries not to be nervous. 

“So you don’t think there’s such a thing as bad taste?” asks Alec on the episode. 

Arthur listens to the conversation on-screen escalate. He’s still scrolling but he’s not reading anything, he’s paying attention to him and Alec snapping at each other. 

Alec says something about Arthur’s “precious Eames,” and Arthur feels Eames tense underneath him, and then Arthur starts talking on the screen and then he _doesn’t stop_. His speech rises and rises and _rises_ , until it hits the crescendo of, “Imagine it instead filled with fedoras. Do you feel such a room _here_?” 

There is a moment of stunned silence, on the screen and in the room. 

Eames on the episode says, “I think we should move on to the next room.” 

“Wow,” breathes Ariadne. “Just wow.” 

“I know,” says Arthur grimly. “It’s a mess.” 

“It’s fantastic,” says Gon. “That was fantastic.” 

Amazingly, Twitter seems to agree. _ARTHUR FOR ALL THE WINS EVER_ is a pretty representative tweet. 

They’re in Gon’s room on the episode now, although of course they barely get into it before Alec snaps, “Cut the filming,” and immediately storms out.

There’s a reaction shot of Arthur and Eames and Gon staring after him, and then the episode goes to commercial. 

“And now I get why that happened,” remarks Gon. 

“I mean this in the best possible way, but this episode is kind of amazing,” says Ariadne. 

“Everything Mal could ever wish for,” agrees Arthur ruefully. 

Twitter’s reaction is basically _!!!!!!!!!!_. 

Arthur doesn’t really know where Alec is in the room at the moment. And he’s pretty sure it’s better this way.


	83. Chapter 83

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to cricketcat9 who originally praised Ariadne's color scheme!

It is, Arthur thinks, a strikingly different show when it’s just him and Eames. It feels almost exactly like _Love It or List It_ , honestly. The awkwardness of Alec’s exit is barely noticeable because Arthur and Eames are such natural hosting partners, so smooth and practiced with each other, that they fall into their usual rhythm immediately. Arthur isn’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. He thinks the show feels more like a home improvement show than some kind of crazy soap opera, but he supposes there’s also a bit of tension and urgency missing from the episode after Alec leaves. If _Next Big Thing_ has become appointment television for some people, it’s not because they like seeing Arthur and Eames stand around getting along with each other, Arthur thinks. 

In fact, Arthur is amazed that his stupid snappish disagreement with Eames over being forbidden to talk to Alec isn’t in the episode. He would have thought Mal would have been desperate to introduce some more conflict between her two remaining judges, but instead they move calmly and efficiently through the rest of the rooms. 

At the end Eames asks, “What are we going to do about the judging? Shall Arthur and I just do it ourselves?” and Mal points to Arthur and explains that Arthur will show the rooms to house-hunters. 

Arthur on-screen says, “Fine. It’s fine,” looking like he would rather be led to a firing squad, and the show cuts to a commercial. 

“You showed the rooms?” Ariadne asks him. 

“Yeah, they didn’t tell you?” says Arthur. 

“No. How’d it go?” Ariadne is practically bouncing with excitement. 

“Don’t tell her,” Eames says. “That would be spoilers.” He winks at Ariadne. 

“Hey, Ari,” says Arthur. “Can you see Alec from where you are?” Arthur is steadfastly refusing to look for him. 

“I can see him,” answers Gon. 

“Does he look like he’s going to kill someone?” asks Arthur, dreading the answer. 

“Because we do so hate the paperwork that ensues when deaths occur on our property,” remarks Eames. 

“He looks calm actually. Looks pretty cozy with Misty Rainbow.” 

“Oh, good,” says Ariadne. “Maybe they’ve been making out and he’s missed the whole episode.” 

“Can we not talk about Alec making out with people?” requests Arthur, wincing. “It makes me feel ill. It’s bad enough I have to deal with, like, the transitive making-out property.”

“What transitive making-out property?” asks Eames, sounding curious. 

“You know, you made out with him and now I make out with you and that means I’ve made out with him.” 

“No,” says Eames. “That’s not what that means.” 

“No, Arthur’s right,” Ariadne says solemnly. “There’s a transitive making-out property.” 

“So by the transitive making-out property I’ve made out with Misty Rainbow?” says Eames skeptically. 

“I bet making out with her would be very zen,” says Arthur. 

“I have an actual important question,” says Eames. 

“Is the question about the transitive property applied to sex?” asks Ariadne. “Because it’s, like, double applied to sex.” 

Arthur groans and flops backward and puts his hat over his face again. 

“Thank you, Ariadne, that was helpful,” says Eames dryly. “No, my important question is: Are Alec and Misty Rainbow a thing? Seriously? Because that seems like something really relevant to know.” 

“They aren’t,” says Gon. “Not seriously. But she’s got a thing for him because he said he understood her room, so she thinks his soul is pure or something now.” 

Arthur moves his hat so he can give this the proper scorn it deserves. “She thinks _his_ soul is pure? Meanwhile she kept freaking out over the state of mine. Whatever, Misty Rainbow. Are you tweeting?” he asks Eames, because Eames has his phone out. “Tweet ‘whatever, Misty Rainbow.’”

“I’m not tweeting that,” says Eames. “I’m just checking what Misty Rainbow’s been tweeting. Look, selfie of her and Alec. ‘NBT viewing party,’” Eames reads, and shows them his phone.

“See, totally a thing,” Ariadne nods. 

“Because the Internet never lies,” says Eames. 

“Eames, did everyone on the Internet think our show is boring?” asks Arthur. 

“What?” Eames asks blankly. “Our show is a hit.” 

“No, not _our_ show. Us, just the two of us, being judges.” 

“No, they loved it.” 

“What?” Arthur sits up and pulls the phone over, because he doesn’t believe this, but the tweets are indeed warm and pleased. No one complains of boredom. The tweets say things like: 

_That is good advice to Gon. Although his mosaic floor is gorgeous._

And

_I had no idea that color scheme would look that great! #teamariadne_

And

_Guys, this is shocking but I think #nextbigthing has actually taught me something about design tonight! Thanks, Eames and Arthur! #armesftw_

And

_#armes rocking this challenge “solo” makes me sad they’re not more collaborative on #lioli. #armes4everything_

And

_I would watch #armes tell me their views on anything. Let’s have a show called Armes Talks for an Hour. I’d watch it._

“Huh,” says Arthur. “So they’re not just watching because you slept with Alec.” 

Eames gives him a look that Arthur can’t really interpret, but then the episode starts back up and Ariadne says, “Shhh!” violently because she’s clearly very invested in what the house hunters are going to say about her room. 

Arthur on-screen looks calm and relaxed and self-assured; he looks in his element. Arthur in real life is tickled pink for the first time all episode. He thinks he looks like a competent real estate agent right there. 

And, as the on-screen him spins his spiel about Misty Rainbow’s room, he decides that what he really looks like is a fucking amazing real estate agent. 

“You’re smiling,” Eames whispers in his ear, and presses his thumb against Arthur’s right dimple.

“It’s good,” Arthur whispers back, because he can’t help it. 

Eames’s tweet scrolls next to the episode. _What do I always say? He’s the best. #arthur4everything_

There are other tweets scrolling up there, and Arthur lets himself read them, because things have been going so unexpectedly well. 

_My favorite Arthur thing is when he works his real estate magic. #arthur4everything_

_Everyone sit back now and watch the master at work, k? #arthur4everything_

_Arthur’s real estate agenting is how I discovered I have a competency kink. #truestory #arthur4everything_

_…Arthur kind of makes me want to live in that crazy mirror room. #arthur4everything_

_Arthur saying my room’s like versailles? Kinda missed the point._ That last tweet is from Misty Rainbow, who apparently likes to make out with Alec and his pure soul, so Arthur thinks that he’s allowed to ignore that one as coming from a crazy person. 

On the episode, Arthur keeps going through the rooms, the house hunters hanging on his every word. When he does Ariadne’s room, Ariadne actually turns to him, her eyes shining with tears, and says, “ _Arthur_. You said such beautiful things!” And they’re hardly the nicest things he’s ever said about her designs and he _was_ actively trying to sell the room but she seems to be crediting him for the praise she’s getting from the house hunters.

“You deserved it,” he says honestly, and she hugs him fiercely in reaction. 

The episode goes to commercial with time left for another segment. 

Ariadne pulls back, frowning now, and says, “Are we going to find out how the house hunters voted now?” 

“Bloody fantastic,” Eames says. “Just what this party needs: for someone to be eliminated right now.” 

Arthur pours himself more champagne and steals a glance in the direction Gon indicated Alec was. Alec is indeed snuggled together with Misty Rainbow. They’re giggling over something. Alec doesn’t look the least bit upset. So they made it through this disastrous episode and Arthur came through it okay and Twitter still seems to like him and Alec doesn’t look like he’s going to cause a scene and all that’s left now is to have a little bit of excellent champagne in celebration. After all, Arthur doesn’t need to worry about being eliminated. 

“I’m sure you’re going to be fine,” Arthur says to Ariadne. “Your design was the best. Sorry, Gon.” 

“No, her design was the best,” Gon agrees. “She did a better job with that challenge.” 

Ariadne definitely flushes pink at that. 

The episode comes back and the screen is filled with…Alec. 

“What’s this?” Eames asks, sounding perplexed. 

Alec looks solemnly at the camera. Alec says, “Well, yeah, you know, it was a tough week. It’s been a tough…” Alec looks off to the left, looking glum and reflective. “It’s been a tough few weeks, let’s be honest.” Alec tries and fails to flicker a smile. “I mean, it’s never easy to be broken up with, first of all. And then it’s never easy to have to work with your ex.” Alec looks up from under the brim of his fedora, sad and stricken and mournful. 

Eames says, “What the _fuck_.”

Arthur stares at the screen and wonders if someone slipped something into his drink and he’s hallucinating. 

Alec continues, “And it’s even harder, as you can imagine, to work with your ex and his new boyfriend and they run around flirting and cuddling and making out in front of you just to…” Alec’s voice actually breaks, and his lips tremble, but he forges forward bravely. “And, you know, Arthur doesn’t make it easy. I mean, he’s won. He has it all. He got Eames and I…” A single tear runs down Alec’s cheek. 

Eames breathes, “No, seriously, what the _fuck_.” 

Alec sniffles pathetically and says, “I got nothing. I mean, I press on, because what can you do? And if I inspire one person—just one person—to keep going, then it’s worth it to me. I do it for all of you, you know.” Alec presses his hand over his heart and looks straight into the camera. “I carry all of you _here_. I fight for all of us who lost the loves of our lives—” Eames actually squeaks—“to people who always seem to manage to land on their feet.” 

The episode cuts to Arthur, saying to the house hunters, “I want to thank you all for being such lovely company this afternoon. It was a pleasure seeing the rooms through your eyes.” 

And one of the house hunters says, “Hey, wait, you really do this stuff, right? Because we really are house hunting.” 

And Arthur watches himself hand out business cards to all of his brand new clients. 

Arthur watches himself land on his feet.


	84. Chapter 84

When the episode ends, there is a moment of complete and total silence, and then it sounds to Arthur like everyone starts talking at once. Arthur can’t really do anything but stare at the place where the episode had been showing, which is now nothing but a fluttering white screen. 

Eames spits out, “I am going to fucking kill him.” 

Ariadne says, “Oh, my God, what was that?” 

Eames says, “No, wait, I’m going to fucking kill Mal, and _then_ I’m going to fucking kill him.” 

Gon says, “Was that…I mean, what _was_ that?”

Arthur is watching the tweets, which are still scrolling, and everyone seems to feel really bad for Alec. And Arthur doesn’t blame them. 

Arthur turns to Eames and says, as evenly as he can, “Did he mean it?” 

“He didn’t mean it,” Eames tells him flatly. “Mal edited this whole episode to make it about you, how perfect you are, just to set that up for him. It’s why she left out our little fight, right? This is all manipulative editing and—”

“Christ, I am a horrible person,” says Arthur, as the full horror of it dawns on him. 

“No, you’re not,” Eames says swiftly. 

“I am. He’s right. I won, I got you, and this whole time I’ve been—”

“Hey,” Eames cuts him off. “Darling, listen to me. You tried to offer him an olive branch and—”

“Were you the love of his life?” Arthur demands. “Maybe you were the love of his life and you didn’t notice because—”

“Stop it. You are talking like a crazy person right now,” Eames bites out at him. 

“Thanks,” Arthur drawls. “Your ex-boyfriend just proclaimed undying love and made me look like the world’s biggest dick, and now you’re calling me a crazy person. So that’s great.” 

Eames glances over his shoulder, and Arthur remembers that Ariadne and Gon are there. Gon looks like he’s trying to pretend he can’t hear every word they’re saying. Ariadne, though, just leans forward and says, “Arthur, you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“I didn’t rub his face in Eames? I didn’t land on my feet? Because it looks like I did.” 

“That’s _editing_ ,” Eames says. 

“It isn’t ‘editing’ that we’re together, Eames. Or, if it is, then we need to talk about the amount of sex we have for our fake, edited-together relationship.” 

“Maybe we should—” starts Gon. 

“That isn’t what—” starts Eames. 

“Total drama episode, right?” says Jess, wandering into their little viewing area. 

Arthur realizes that everyone just thinks that all this is for show. Entertainment. Instead of his real life. Instead of his real life being that poor Alec lost the love of his life and Arthur has been _horrible_ to him about it. Arthur has made it all about him, the whole time, and Arthur is, as Alec had pointed out, _the one who won_. 

Eames swears under his breath and says, “I’m going to talk to Mal.” 

“Not a good idea,” says Arthur. 

“Would you rather I talk to Alec?” 

“Worse idea,” says Arthur. 

“Then what do you want me to do?” snaps Eames. 

“I want you to calm down,” Arthur retorts, “because this situation is entirely our fault. Mal didn’t make us do anything we’ve done on the show. Mal definitely didn’t make you sleep with Alec. And she didn’t make me be terrible to him.” 

“She _edited_ it—” Eames’s attention is suddenly caught by something over Arthur’s shoulder. “Mal!” he barks. 

Arthur turns to follow Eames’s gaze. Mal and Cobb are apparently trying to sneak out. 

“Lovely party, dear heart!” Mal calls to him, her hand on the doorknob. “Thanks for having us!” 

“Like fuck are you leaving,” mutters Eames, and takes off after them. 

Arthur sighs and turns to Ariadne and Gon, who are both looking at him with pity. 

Fuck this, thinks Arthur. “I’m going to tell the dee-jay to put music back on.” He feels like everyone is just standing around talking about what a horrible person he is, and he can’t stand that a moment longer. 

The dee-jay nods when Arthur tells him to start the music up, and then Arthur takes a step to the side and watches Eames engaged in a heated conversation with Mal. Cobb is standing next to them looking like he wants to become invisible. Arthur knows the feeling. Luckily, nobody seems to be paying any attention to him at the moment. Dance music starts throbbing out of the speakers and animated conversations are happening all around the room but nobody’s looking at him—

Except for Alec. Their eyes meet across the room. Arthur wonders wildly what his face looks like and what he can do across the room to communicate _I’m sorry, I know what it’s like to fall head over heels for Eames and have him break your heart thoughtlessly, as if you mean nothing, and I should have understood that instead of gloating about how I was lucky enough to win._

And while he’s trying to decide what expression he needs to wear to convey all of that: 

Alec lifts his champagne flute at Arthur and _smiles_. He tips one corner of his mouth up and fucking _smirks_. 

And then he winks at him. 

From underneath his stupid crown. 

“Oh,” breathes Arthur, “I am going to fucking kill him.”


	85. Chapter 85

Arthur promised Eames he was going to avoid Alec at the party, and he doesn’t think that Eames would appreciate Arthur breaking that promise to go over and strangle Alec, mostly because he thinks Eames probably wants that honor for himself. And anyway, thinks Arthur, that’s what Alec _wants_. He wants Arthur to make some sort of fucking huge scene here so that Alec can twist it again into being evidence of what a prick Arthur is and how persecuted Alec is. Arthur feels suddenly like Alec has been three steps ahead of him this entire time and that’s so ridiculous because Arthur is _smart_ and Alec has played him like a fiddle. 

Arthur needs to _get out_. If he stays in that room another second he’s going to scream. So he ducks out of the front room and down the hallway that leads to their private rooms, around the corner to the locked door. They don’t always keep that door locked but Arthur had been worried that Alec would try to get in. So Arthur has to stop to fish for his key in his pocket and as he’s fishing for his key it suddenly occurs to him. 

Why, he wonders, would Alec give his game away that quickly? Alec could have milked that. Could have milked Arthur. Arthur was ready to grovel, to give him everything he wanted, because Arthur was drowning in guilt over having unwittingly broken Alec’s heart. Alec had given away the fakeness of his act right away, though. Instead of playing it out longer…

Arthur stares unseeingly at the door and thinks, _He hasn’t been playing you like a fiddle. You’ve been_ letting _him play you like a fiddle_. Because it’s clear to him, all of a sudden, just like that, that Alec has never once understood him. If Alec had understood him, Alec would never have winked at him from across the room. Alec thinks they’re playing some sort of ridiculous game. Alec has never realized how deeply involved Arthur’s feelings are. Alec literally has just _never understood_ how much Arthur _feels_. And Arthur doesn’t know why that’s so surprising to him, he goes to a lot of effort to keep that hidden, but he’s been behaving as if Alec knew all along how much he was hurting Arthur and he _never did_. Alec doesn’t realize how deep he’s been hitting at Arthur, because Alec just _doesn’t get it_. 

Eames had warned Arthur of that, at the very beginning. This has never about Eames, any of it, Alec has proven that. This has all been about, of all ridiculous things, _show business_. And who, other than Alec, even gives a flying fuck about show business? Arthur certainly doesn’t. He never has. Arthur wants Eames. That’s all Arthur has ever wanted. 

But Arthur has more than that. Arthur has Eames. Arthur has two jobs he’s both good and successful at. Arthur has a house he loves and people he likes and this incredible life. Arthur has all of that, and Alec has never been able to touch any of that, because Alec’s playing a _game_. Alec thought Arthur left himself exposed by being so real, but in truth that’s what’s been protecting Arthur: If Alec thinks everything is fake, then Alec never understands that anything is real. 

_It doesn’t matter,_ thinks Arthur. _It really fucking doesn’t matter_. He told Eames he was going to stop worrying about Alec, and Eames refused to stop worrying, because Eames knows Alec better and probably knew that Alec would play a ridiculous card like this, somehow, someway. But _it doesn’t matter_. Alec can play all the fucking cards he want. Alec can’t win a game that Arthur has never been playing. He just _can’t_. 

Arthur turns away from his door. He’s going to find Eames and drag him into that willow tree nook and kiss him until Eames understands: They win. They’ve always won. They always will win. And it’s so sappy he’s almost embarrassed to be thinking it but it’s sappy enough that Eames will love it because that’s how Eames is. Eames loves ridiculous things like that and Eames loves Arthur and Alec’s right: _they win_. 

Arthur is about to round the corner on his way back to the front room when there’s a commotion from the hallway and then Alec’s voice says, “Eames, you really can’t just—”

“Watch me,” Eames’s voice snaps at him. 

Arthur freezes where he is, momentarily startled. 

Alec’s voice says, syrupy sweet, “But, Eames _darling_ \--”

Arthur flinches, and Eames says, “Use that word again and I will snap your neck.”

“Eames,” says Alec, “let’s not get—” The rest of his words are garbled. 

Arthur rounds the corner quickly then. Eames has Alec crowded against the wall, his forearm casually holding him into place by the throat. He is all lethally controlled power and Arthur is thrown off-guard by this; it is so unlike Eames as he usually sees him. 

In Arthur’s moment of surprised delay, Eames, still clearly oblivious to Arthur’s presence, bites out at Alec, “You’ve got the wrong idea about me. You think I chose love over my career and that therefore makes me weak and that is such a stupid thing to think because there is no more dangerous motivator in the world than adoration. Through some extraordinary alchemy Arthur is _happy_ , and there is nothing that I will not do to maintain that. You’ve been on thin ice for a while now, and I think it’s made you think the ice will never crack under you. Don’t make that mistake. I’ve just been waiting for you to get far enough out that you’ll be in over your head when it goes.” 

Arthur isn’t sure when he moved to Eames’s elbow. It was sometime during the speech. What he does know is that neither Eames nor Alec noticed him because when he says, “Eames,” softly, Eames jumps and Alec’s panicked eyes flicker over to Arthur. “Let him go,” says Arthur. 

“Darling—” Eames starts. 

“I’m serious,” Arthur says gently. “Let him go.” 

Eames takes a deep breath. Then he takes a step away from Alec. Then another. And then he starts pacing the hall, sending out waves of unsettled energy. 

Arthur ignores him, even though Alec is watching him fearfully, as if he expects him to snap again any minute. 

Arthur steps into Alec’s personal space. He doesn’t touch him but he keeps him pinned against the wall nonetheless, and he gets Alec’s attention, Alec’s gaze shifting from Eames to Arthur. 

“Hi,” Arthur says, and then he smiles evenly at him. 

Alec blinks, looking even more terrified than he had. 

Arthur says, “Well-played. Really. Brilliant game. But here’s what you should realize: Is there any move you’ve made we haven’t countered? Is there anything you’ve done that hasn’t had the exact opposite effect you wished? I’ve now got an excellent reputation as the incredibly charismatic manager of an impressively exclusive sex club, all of your ridiculous attempts to draw me out have only increased my Twitter following, thanks to your tantrum I’ve got four new clients and even more great free advertising, and this party you manipulated us into having is a truly fabulous opportunity for us to go out there and show everyone how little you’ve affected us with all of your furious machinations. You said it yourself: I land on my feet. Keep coming at me, Alec. Keep watching me land on my feet. But I’m thinking it’s going to get old. I’m thinking you’re going to get tired of how truly incredibly much you’re actually improving my life with all of this. Let’s face it: You don’t understand me, Alec. You never have, and you never will. You will never, ever, ever be able to see me coming. I’m thinking you don’t want to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for me, waiting for me to do the next thing that you never expected. You need to go find someone else to play, Alec. You’re just going to wear yourself out with me. This game’s over.” 

Alec opens his mouth. And then he closes it. 

_Good_ , thinks Arthur. 

“Eames,” Arthur says, without looking away from Alec. He can sense that at some point Eames went still behind him, because the hallway is no longer thrumming with his anxiety. 

“Yeah,” Eames responds. 

“Come dance with me,” Arthur says, and walks away from Alec. 

He doesn’t look back.


	86. Chapter 86

Arthur doesn’t recognize the song that’s playing. It doesn’t matter. It’s some sort of electronica dance mix and it’s got a good beat and the contestants all seem to be dancing as one great big group in the middle of what had previously been the nosh pit. Arthur waits on the edge of the group until Eames behind him says, “What—”

Arthur turns and kisses him, tangling his hands into his hair, holding him in place. It isn’t a slow kiss. He doesn’t want it to be. 

When he breaks it, he pants at Eames, “Dance with me.” 

“Okay,” Eames says, sounding dazed, and slides his hands to Arthur’s hips. 

Arthur matches the beat, fists his hands into Eames’s shirt to keep their bodies pressed close together, licks at Eames’s neck. “This is such a fucking terrible shirt you’re wearing.” 

“I can tell you think so from how you seem to want to take it off me,” remarks Eames, settling his hands under Arthur’s suit jacket, at the small of Arthur’s back, nudging him closer. 

Arthur has a better sense of the beat than Eames does so he takes the lead a little, although his lead is mostly with his hips, the slide of them against Eames. Actually, now that he thinks about it, that’s possibly why Eames’s rhythm keeps stuttering. 

“I, um,” says Eames, sounding strangled, “didn’t really know you could dance like this.” 

“You’ve never taken me clubbing,” Arthur points out, drawing his nose up the side of Eames’s neck.

“You never said that was something you wanted.” 

Arthur shrugs and shifts a bit so he can suck a mark into the base of Eames’s neck. 

Eames’s hips jerk, his hands sliding down to cup Arthur’s ass. “Christ,” he groans, “I am regretting the no-clubbing decision right now. We are going clubbing, like, tomorrow night. Maybe later on tonight, actually.” 

“Hands,” Arthur says, and pulls them back up. 

“Oh, you get to suck a hickey onto my neck and I can’t touch your arse?” 

“We’re in public,” Arthur reminds him primly, exhaling against his lips and deliberately not kissing him. 

“If you think you’re going to distract me from whatever the hell that was with Alec by groping me on this dance floor, good plan, it’s definitely working.” 

Arthur grins and winks and swings his hips in lower arcs, drawing his nose down the line of buttons on the front of Eames’s shirt. 

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Eames breathes. 

Arthur draws himself back up, keeping his nose against Eames, all the way up Eames’s throat, along his cheek, before rubbing it against Eames’s nose, and then he draws back a little and presses his hands to Eames’s cheeks, framing his face, and he just _looks_ at him, at his artful stubble and his ridiculous mouth and those no-color-every-color eyes he has, and all of a sudden, just like that, Arthur feels like he could _cry_. 

“Darling,” Eames says, lifting his hands to encircle Arthur’s wrists, achingly gentle, as if he understands that Arthur is floundering in emotion. And probably he does understand that. For every moment Arthur spends drowning in love for Eames, he knows Eames matches him. For every second Arthur spends worrying about whether he makes Eames happy enough, Eames spends an echoing second worrying about keeping Arthur happy. And, together, they fit, filling in each other’s uncertainties with their own certainties. For everything one of them doubts, the other of them _knows_ , and in that way they make themselves a whole, and that, Arthur thinks, is all you can hope for out of life. Maybe he’ll never get everything right, but he doesn’t need to: he just needs to get half right, and to trust Eames to get the other half. And Eames, he knows, with bone-deep faith, Eames _will_. Arthur will never take a step ever in his life without knowing that Eames is watching, ready to catch him if he trips over the things he can’t see, ready to save him. The same way Arthur misses a lot of those things because of how closely he’s watching Eames’s steps. 

“It isn’t some extraordinary alchemy, Eames,” Arthur says. “It’s _you_. It’s just _you_. It’s just how much I _love you_. I love you and you love me and we make us and that’s—that’s the extraordinary alchemy.” Arthur drops his hands so he can wrap his arms around Eames and press his face against Eames’s neck. Sometimes Eames makes him feel this way, overcome and undone. Usually it happens in situations where Arthur can blame it on sex, on something physical, so that he doesn’t have to admit that it’s nothing to do with wherever Eames’s hands might be, that it’s entirely to do with the fact that when Arthur lets himself really think about how much he loves Eames, he literally can’t breathe, can’t remember what human beings are supposed to do to _live_. 

Eames closes him in, settles one hand on the back of his head in a protective, cradling gesture, and he doesn’t say anything. He lets Arthur shudder breaths against him. They’ve stopped dancing at some point, and Arthur listens to the drive of the beat and the loud exclamations of everyone else in the room who isn’t having some sort of ridiculous _moment_. 

Arthur says, “He isn’t even in the same _galaxy_ as us.” 

“I know,” Eames says. 

“You knew all along,” Arthur says. “And you tried to tell me but I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand.” 

“You needed processing time,” says Eames. 

Arthur chokes out a laugh. “I needed so much processing time.” Arthur straightens and looks at Eames. “You didn’t break his heart. That whole thing was fake.” 

Eames gives him his I-told-you-so eyebrow. “I know. And it was a fucking underhanded move. As was what Mal did.” 

“And it doesn’t matter, Eames. There’s no use getting all upset about it. We win. We just win. Because we know what’s important and we know it’s each other. So we’ll go to work and we’ll be utterly professional and we’ll banter and be happy and we’ll _win_. Because at the end of the day we have us.” 

“That is…a lovely sentiment,” says Eames, and presses a lingering kiss to Arthur’s temple. He stays there for the space of a breath. Then he says, “Just how drunk are you?” 

Arthur knows he does it to try to pull them both back from the precipice they’re balancing on. So Arthur just says, “Shut up,” and grins at him, all sloppily besotted. 

Eames kisses the tip of Arthur’s left ear, because Eames always kisses some ridiculous part of him when he really wants to show how much he loves him. 

“What’d you tell Mal?” Arthur asks, and shift back into the beat, this time with space between them, trying to normalize him.

“I think I might have told her she deserved Cobb.” 

“That’s the worst thing you could come up with?” 

“It is pretty bad,” Eames points out. 

Arthur makes a noncommittal gesture with his head. 

“I also said that I think she’s made questionable editing choices and that no one will want to work with her ever because of the amount of personal life being flung across the screen. But the truth is: People like Alec will work with her.” 

“People like Alec deserve people like her. It all works out in the end. People eventually find the people they need.” 

“You’re scaring me now. You sound like Misty Rainbow.” 

“What if I said they’re both fucking assholes and they should rot in hell together?” 

“Sounds more like you.” 

“I sound delightful,” deadpans Arthur. 

“It’s what I love about you,” says Eames cheerfully. 

Arthur rolls his eyes at him and lets Eames tilt him closer, lets his forehead tip against his. “Want me to tell you a secret?” 

“Is it about what you’re wearing under that suit?” 

“Oh, I’m not wearing anything under this suit. It would have ruined the line.” 

“Fucking bloody _hell_ , darling, if I’d known that in the hallway with Alec, I wouldn’t have let you get back out here in public.” 

“You’re wrong about which of us was unbelievably fuckable in the hallway,” says Arthur.

“Am I?” 

“Fuck, yes, I wanted you fucking me through the mattress immediately.”

“Why is it we’re at this party and not in our bedroom right now?” 

“Because sometimes, Eames, foreplay should last for hours.” 

“No,” says Eames. “You’re wrong. Not true.”

Arthur chuckles. “I’m right. I’ll prove it to you later. In the meantime: Do you want to hear my secret?” 

“No. I don’t think I can take any more foreplay out of you tonight.” 

“The secret is how to keep me happy.” 

Eames is silent for a second. Then he says uncertainly, “Okay.” 

“It’s you. Not a part you’re playing. Just you. So stop worrying about it.” 

“I’m probably not going to,” admits Eames.

“I’ll just have to keep whistling,” Arthur says. 

And then, unbelievably, Scott says, “Eames, I wanted to ask you, what were the calculations for getting that slide at the right spiral?”

Eames straightens away from Arthur and looks at Scott in disbelief. “What?” 

“I mean, it’s been driving me crazy all night. Did you get an engineer in here? What kind of bolts did you use?”

Eames blinks at him. “No, seriously, _what_?”

“Oh,” says Scott, looking between the two of them. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Eames stares at him. 

Arthur actually laughs. Because the situation deserves that. “Go,” he says to Eames, and gives him a quick kiss. “This place needs more alcohol and better music. So I will go and rectify that.” He whistles as he walks away. He’s not entirely sure Eames can hear him, but he’s pretty sure Eames gets the point anyway.


	87. Chapter 87

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to pureimaginatrix for the juliardne idea!

Arthur is pouring himself a new glass of champagne—because he has no idea where his glass ended up but he supposes it’s back in the viewing area with his abandoned hat—when Ariadne grabs the bottle out of his hand and says, “We are taking this whole thing, my friend,” and then takes his hand and drags him off toward the willow tree nook. 

“Um,” says Arthur. “You should know that I’m homosexual.” 

“Yeah, you’re dating a guy,” Ariadne throws over her shoulder. “Got that.” 

“I just meant that we’re not going to be doing any making out,” says Arthur. 

Ariadne snorts. “No making out. Just gossiping about men.” She ducks through the willow tree branches and Arthur follows both for lack of anything better to do now that Scott has cornered Eames and also because she tugs hard on his hand. 

Julia is also in the willow tree nook, sprawled out on her back and looking, frankly, a little worse for wear. 

“Hello,” Arthur says to her politely. 

“Sit down,” Ariadne prompts him, and tugs him down to the floor next to her and then fills his glass. “Julia’s had a tough night,” Ariadne confides. 

Arthur is sober enough not to say that it looks it. Arthur tries to look sympathetic and takes a grave sip of his champagne. 

Julia points at Arthur accusingly. “Did you know this?” 

Arthur says haltingly, “About your tough night?” 

“That Yusuf isn’t husband material.”

“I never really gave any thought to whether or not Yusuf was husband material,” Arthur admits. “Is he not husband material?” 

Ariadne shakes her head at him a little bit, clearly warning him off of that question. 

“Oh,” Arthur recovers. “I mean, yes, of course he’s not husband material.” 

Julia grumbles something unintelligible and holds her glass out for a refill. 

“Tell us about your husband material,” Ariadne prompts Arthur. 

“My husband material?” echoes Arthur. 

“The boy you’re dating which is why you won’t make out with us here in the willow tree nook,” Ariadne explains. 

“Useless!” proclaims Julia, and Arthur isn’t sure if she means him or Yusuf. 

Arthur says, “Um. He’s good.” 

“He seems nice,” Ariadne says. “Is he nice?” 

“He’s nice,” Arthur agrees. 

“Is he looking for a partner?” she asks. 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow and says slowly, “I don’t think so…” 

“Not a _romantic_ partner. A _business_ partner.” 

“Oh,” Arthur says. “I don’t know. He’s never mentioned it. You mean a design partner? Because he’s kind of got a television-show-hosting partner already.” 

“ _Arthur_ ,” says Ariadne dramatically, leaning over him. “You’re too sober. Drink up.” She nudges the champagne toward his mouth. 

“Okay,” he says, taking a sip. 

She tips the edge of his flute so he ends up with a sputtering gulp. 

“Okay,” he says again, choking a little bit. 

“Good, now you need more,” announces Ariadne, and immediately refills his glass. 

“Arthur,” Julia says. “Aaaaaaaaaaarthuuuuuuuuur. Your name is, like, almost all vowels.” 

“When you say it like that, yes.” 

“All vowels and a thththththth sound. What do you think your mom was thinking with that?” Julia looks frankly interested. 

Because he has always thought his name weird and old-fashioned, Arthur’s asked his mother and actually has an answer for this. “She was thinking of King Arthur and she liked the idea of naming her son after this really noble, chivalrous, mythic figure.” 

Ariadne snorts. “Like you could ever live up to that, right?” 

“Thanks, Ari,” deadpans Arthur. 

“I just mean it’s a high bar. Seriously, finish that glass, you are way too sober.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at her and says, “Watch this,” and then downs the champagne. 

“There you go!” says Ariadne, pleased, while Julia applauds. 

“Arthur,” Julia says. 

There’s a moment of silence.

Julia looks at him, “You’re supposed to say ‘what.’”

“Oh,” Arthur says. “Sorry, I thought you were just saying my name again.” 

“I don’t just go around saying your name. What do you think I am? Some kind of crazy name-saying person?” 

“No,” Arthur says somberly. “Absolutely not. What is it you wanted to say to me?” 

“What?” asks Julia. 

“You said my name.” 

“It’s a nice name,” Julia says vaguely. 

“You said it was all vowels and a th sound.” 

“That’s just stating a fact. Oh! I know what I wanted to say to you!”

“We’re out of champagne,” Ariadne complains, sounding sad, and crawls over to the edge of the nook to post her head out of the branches. “Gon!” she shouts. “Can you get us another bottle of champagne?” Ariadne brings her head back in and says to Arthur, “Do you think he’s cute? Am I crazy to think he’s cute?” 

“Ari!” Julia complains. “We’re talking about _my_ husband material. Arthur, do you know any single men? _Husband material_ single men. Not like that Yusuf you set me up with.” 

“I didn’t actually set you up with Yusuf,” Arthur tries to defend himself. 

Gon pokes his head into the nook, brandishing a bottle of champagne. “Oh,” he says, sounding surprised. “You’ve got, like, a whole little party going on in here.” 

Ariadne takes the bottle from Gon and says to Arthur, “Tell Gon thank you.” 

“What?” says Arthur. 

“You’re sober. I’m too drunk to thank Gon right now.” 

Arthur doesn’t feel especially sober but he’s aware he’s very sober in comparison to Ariadne. “Thank you, Gon,” Arthur tells him. 

Gon is looking amused at Ariadne, his gaze soft and fond. “Don’t mention it.” 

“Now go,” Ariadne announces. “Arthur’s telling us how Eames is in bed.” 

“No, I’m not,” Arthur says. 

“Shh!” Ariadne hisses at him. “That’s just what we’re _saying_.”

“You’re a bad liar,” Julia informs him. “But seriously, what’s Eames like in bed?” 

“After this bottle, all of you are moving on to water,” Gon says. 

“After this bottle?” Arthur says. “That’s not very responsible.” 

“I’m putting you in charge of drinking most of the bottle,” Gon tells him sternly, and then winks as he pulls out of the nook. 

“What the fuck,” Arthur complains, accepting Ariadne’s filling of his glass. “Why is everyone acting like I’m not fucking pulling my weight with the alcohol?” 

“Why does everyone keep talking about not important things?” Julia asks. “I asked you an important question.” 

“I’m not talking about my sex life. Everyone in the universe knows way more about my sex life than is necessary,” says Arthur into his champagne. 

“No, I asked you another important question,” Julia says. “What was my other important question?” 

“Husband material,” Ariadne reminds her. 

“Oh, yeah. Husband material. I’ll give you another chance, Arthur, even though your first attempt was hideous.” 

“How am I responsible for the Yusuf thing?” 

“You know Yusuf.” 

“Yes.” 

“So.” Julia waves her hand around. 

Arthur frowns. “That argument has a flaw but I can’t, like, articulate it right now.” 

“No flaw,” says Julia. “Flawless.” 

“Flawless,” agrees Ariadne. 

“I don’t know anyone,” Arthur says. “I know, like, you guys. And Eames. And Eames’s parents. And my mother. And Paul.” 

“Is Paul single?” 

“I guess? I don’t know, actually.” 

“Excellent. Set me up with him. Who is he? Never mind. Doesn’t matter.” 

“You know,” remarks Arthur, “probably this attitude is what led to whatever disaster happened with Yusuf.” 

“No, Yusuf is _your_ fault,” remarks Julia. 

“Arthur,” says Ariadne, “I’m a little drunk right now.”

“You think?” says Arthur. 

“But I mean this very seriously: Are you okay?” 

“I’m a little drunk, too, now,” admits Arthur. 

“No, I mean with Alec.” 

Arthur smiles at her. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about that.” 

“No, don’t _you_ worry,” Julia tells him. “Ari and I are taking Alec fucking _down_.” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Really. Don’t stress about it, it’s—What’s this?” Because Ariadne has thrust her phone in his face. 

What it is appears to be a video of Alec making out with Misty Rainbow. And it’s not from that night. 

“Wait, where’d you get this?” Arthur asks, staring at it. His thoughts are moving sluggishly at the moment but Ariadne apparently has a video of Alec making out with a contestant on their show and that, he thinks, is a decently big deal. In the world of the show. In the real world where the planet has very real problems, who gives a fuck. But in the world of the show, yes: big deal. 

“He came to see her last night,” Ariadne says. “They ‘bonded’ over her stupid mirror room or something. Whatever. I didn’t want to say anything about it at first because, like, if someone had said something about us, it would have been a disaster, you know? But fuck that. Alec is a dick and Alec deserves someone saying something about this.” 

“Tweet it,” Julia says. 

“No,” Arthur says immediately. “No, we need to think about this. Like, soberly think about this. Without champagne. I have to think about…Fuck, are they, like, _dating_?”

“You’re so cute,” Ariadne says. “You think everyone who fucks someone else is dating. I can’t even stand you, honestly.” 

“So cute,” Julia agrees. “Like a little leprechaun. Isn’t he like a little leprechaun?” 

“What the _fuck_ with the leprechaun thing?” Arthur complains. “Like, _seriously_?”

“I call them Team Mistec,” Julia says.

“What?” 

“Misty Rainbow and Alec. Mistec. Get it? Ha! I crack myself up. More champagne!” Julia holds out her glass again.

“Wait,” Arthur says, and intercepts the bottle. “I promised Gon I’d drink most of this one.” He tops off his glass and says, “I appreciate it. This thing with Alec. And you guys taking my side. I appreciate it.” 

“He’s a liar and a fake and a cheat,” Ariadne says. “I’m not even sure he’s ever actually designed a room. I think it’s all done behind the scenes by a bunch of people who he probably never even thanks.” 

Arthur’s never thought about that, because Eames does everything himself, but he wonders if it’s true and Alec is just an on-screen personality who never designs himself. That would explain his crazy judging opinions. 

“I’ll ask Eames about that,” Arthur says. 

“Are we going to talk about how Eames is in bed now?” asks Julia hopefully. 

“No,” Arthur says firmly. 

“ _Fine_ ,” sighs Julia dramatically. “Be that way. So where’s your sex club? I thought we’d get to see it.” 

“This is my sex club,” Arthur says. 

“I’m torn between thinking that’s super-stupid and super-cool,” remarks Julia frankly. 

“I don’t actually have a sex club,” Arthur says for the ten millionth time in his life. “But if I did it would look like this.” 

“A willow tree?” asks Julia.

“A _playground_!” exclaims Ariadne. “Oh, my God, it’s an _adult playground_! I get it!”

“Right?” says Arthur proudly. “Isn’t it brilliant? That’s all Eames.” 

“I don’t get it,” says Julia. 

“What’s a sex club?” Ariadne asks Julia. 

“A place where people have sex?” Julia guesses. 

“That’s what I thought, too!” says Arthur, and tips his glass against Julia’s. 

“It’s a place where people _have fun_. It’s a playground for grown-ups! Fuck, he’s a genius.” 

“I know, right?” says Arthur, and collapses backward. “I almost can’t stand it.” 

“Except for how you’re in love with it,” says Ariadne knowingly. 

“Yeah, there is that.” Arthur holds up his glass for more champagne. 

“How’d you know he was husband material?” asks Julia.

Arthur snorts. “Trust me, I didn’t.” 

“How’d you know he was the one?” asks Ariadne.

Arthur looks at the willow branches swaying over his head and says, “I think he’s in my DNA. That probably doesn’t make sense, but it’s like he’s written on my skin. Like if you could understand my heartbeat you’d translate it to ‘Eames.’ It’s like that.”

There’s a moment of silence. 

Julia says feelingly, “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” 

“Stop,” Arthur says, feeling himself blushing. 

“It’s true,” insists Julia. “You are a _poet_. You should be a poet. Has anyone ever told you that? You’d be such a good poet. Wouldn’t he be a good poet, Ari?” 

“It didn’t even rhyme, though,” says Ariadne. “That’s, like, cheating, right? I mean, let’s be honest. Iambic pentameter, _that’s_ poetry. What the fuck was that? Free verse?”

“Iambic pentameter?” says Arthur. “Are you seriously pulling that out of your pocket right now? What the fuck, Ari? I thought you were drunk.” 

“Dude, drunkenness does not mean that you forget about _Shakespeare_ , okay?”

“Don’t call me ‘dude.’”

“He’s not a dude, he’s a leprechaun,” says Julia. 

“Fucking Christ,” says Arthur. 

“Can I say something really serious to you guys?” says Julia. 

Arthur waves his hand to tell her to go ahead. 

Julia says tearfully, “You guys are my best friends.” 

“Aw,” says Arthur, touched. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been anyone’s best friend before.” 

“ _Arthur_ ,” says Ariadne, and throws herself down on him in a hug. 

“Wait, wait!” exclaims Julia, and also tumbles on top of him. “Group hug!”

Arthur grunts at the unexpected weight. “Fuck, you two are crushing me.” 

“Oh, we can’t weigh nearly as much as Eames,” Julia scoffs. 

“He _warns_ me when he’s just going to land on top of me,” Arthur protests. 

“‘Darling, do be careful, I am now going to stretch myself carefully out over you in a manner conducive to sexual intercourse,’” says Julia, in something Arthur is sure she imagines is a British accent. 

“That’s not what he sounds like,” Arthur tells her. 

“Selfie!” proclaims Ariadne, and tips her phone up over them. “Smile!” 

She takes the photo and they pass it around and they pronounce it decent enough to be shared with the universe. 

“What should I tag it?” Ariadne asks, frowning at her phone. 

Arthur pours himself more champagne. “Next Big Thing.” 

“Have some imagination, Arthur,” says Julia. “How about Team Jutadne?” 

“Jutadne?” echoes Arthur. 

“Yeah, that’s our BFF name,” explains Julia. 

“You’re the ‘Ju’ and Ariadne’s the ‘adne.’ What am I?” 

“The ‘t,’ obviously.” 

“I don’t even have a ‘t’ in my name,” Arthur points out. 

“Um,” says Ariadne. “Yes, you do.”

“Okay, fine, but it’s not a ‘t’ sound. It’s a ‘th’ sound.”

“Juthadne,” says Julia. “Happy?” 

“No. It sounds awful. What about…Ariulier?” 

“ _What_?” Julia basically shrieks. “That is _horrible_.” 

“Too late,” Ariadne says. “I tweeted it.” 

“What’d you tag it?” asks Julia. 

“Team Juliardne.” 

“I’m not even in that name at all!” Arthur protests. 

“You’re the ‘ar,’” Ariadne tells him. 

“That’s Julia’s ‘a,’” Arthur sulks. “I’m just the ‘r.’”

“I’m tweeting right now. ‘That’s not Julia’s “a,” it’s Arthur’s.’”

“Thank you,” says Arthur primly. “I appreciate that.” 

“Arthur,” says Julia, “if you don’t know any husband material, I think the least you can do is make out with us.” 

“He’s already said no,” Ariadne says. 

“I know Paul. He might be husband material. Anyway, I can’t make out with you. I have a hot boyfriend, he likes me to only make out with him.” 

“Go ahead, rub it in,” Julia says. “Yes, yes, your boyfriend is super-hot and worships the ground you walk on.” 

“Hey, apparently Alec likes making out with random people on this show, so there’s that,” suggests Arthur. 

Julia gasps. “Take that back!” 

Eames sticks his head between the branches and says, “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. What’s going on in here?” 

“Eames!” exclaims Julia. “Arthur’s hot boyfriend! Will you let him make out with us?” 

“What?” Eames says. 

“Or will you make out with us?” asks Julia. 

“Darling,” Eames says to Arthur. Because of Arthur’s angle on the ground, Eames is upside-down in his vision. “You can’t just spring orgy propositions on me like this.” 

“She’s looking for husband material,” Arthur says. “Is Paul single?” 

“Eames, we’re out of champagne,” Ariadne says, and hands him the empty bottle. 

“I can see that,” Eames says, sounding wry. 

“We’re not that drunk,” Arthur tells him. “Mostly it’s Julia that’s drunk.” 

“That’s because of stupid Yusuf,” Julia says, “and that’s your fault.”

“Hey, what do you think our BFF name should be?” Arthur asks. 

“Your what?” says Eames. 

“Like how we’re Armes, right? Julia, Ari, and I are BFFs now and we need a name. Ari says it’s Juliardne, but, like, that just leaves me as the ‘r’ and I am more than an ‘r,’ right?” 

“You are much more than an ‘r,’” says Eames. “You are, indeed, an entire ‘Arthur.’”

“Exactly,” Arthur agrees. “An entire Arthur. That’s me.” 

“I thought the entire Arthur might want to dance with me,” says Eames. 

Arthur listens to the song that’s playing. “You got him to play Julien Dore.” 

“I said that my boyfriend sings to me in French sometimes when he gets drunk. The dee-jay is an Armes fan, let’s say.” 

“Armes forever,” Arthur says, as he pulls himself to his feet. “Arthur for Eames.”

“Eames for Arthur,” says Eames. 

“I’m going to dance with my hot boyfriend,” Arthur tells Julia and Ariadne, “because it’s French music.” 

“Do you think Gon speaks French?” asks Ariadne. 

“Does Paul speak French?” asks Julia. 

“Arthur speaks French,” says Eames. 

“ _Oui_ ,” says Arthur, and takes Eames to the dancefloor.


	88. Chapter 88

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated thanks to addiemay, alltoseek, coffeeandtv, aadarshinah, geronimoandbemagnificent, and cosmogyral_mad_woman, all of whom helped come up with (I think that was addiemay?) and then flesh out (everyone else) the Mistec ship name!

“I think,” says Arthur, as Eames pushes his pants off of him, “that it was a huge success, right?” 

“Christ,” Eames says, “you really weren’t wearing anything under that suit.” 

“It’s really well-tailored, that suit,” Arthur says vaguely. 

“But don’t you think you should wear something while the suit’s being tailored to avoid this situation?” Eames asks.

“What situation?” asks Arthur. 

“The being naked situation here.” 

“You want me to avoid being naked?” asks Arthur, confused. 

“You make a good—if drunken—point.” Eames turns Arthur so he’s facing the bathroom. “Go. Get ready for bed. Brush your teeth. Et cetera.” 

Arthur long ago decided that if you could brush your teeth, you clearly weren’t drunk. So that proves he’s not still drunk. Even though maybe it takes him a little while to coordinate it. 

“So,” he says, swinging the bathroom door back open, “I was saying: Huge success, right?” 

“Huge success,” Eames says, pulling a t-shirt over Arthur’s head for him. 

“I can _dress_ myself,” Arthur says. 

“Okay then. Put these on.” Eames thrusts pajama pants into his arms. 

“Seems like a waste of time,” Arthur says, “since we’re going to have sex.” 

“Mmm,” says Eames. “I appreciate your ambition, darling, I really do, but I think I’m going to take a raincheck on the sex.” 

“I’m not that drunk,” Arthur assures him, tipping over as he tries to put the pants on. Luckily, he lands against Eames’s chest. “Okay,” he says into Eames’s chest, “that looked bad, but I actually planned that to be, you know, really sexy.” 

“Consider me seduced,” Eames says, brushing a kiss over the top of his head. “Let’s go to bed.” 

“Right. Excellent. What I’ve been saying.” Arthur crawls into bed and actually, now that his head is on his pillow, sex seems like kind of a lot of work. He says, “Wait. I’ve rethought the sex thing. I might want to take a nap first.” 

“Yeah,” Eames agrees. “I thought you might come to that conclusion. Please take note of the water and paracetemol I’ve put out for you on your nightstand, in case you wake during the night wanting to die from your hangover.” Eames shuts the light off. At least, Arthur assumes he does because the bedroom goes dark. 

“Para-what?”

“Tylenol.” 

“Can’t you speak fucking English?” complains Arthur. 

“That was English,” Eames says.

“Liar. That was, like, Latin, wasn’t it? I bet you learned Latin in school. They teach that in the old country.” 

“The old country?” Eames settles into bed next to him. He’s throwing off huge waves of heat and Arthur cuddles against him, presses into him as much as he can. 

“Where you’re from,” Arthur explains helpfully. 

“Ah, thank you for that clarification. Did you have fun, darling?” 

“I did. I really did. I’m sorry I drank so much champagne. That was Ariadne’s fault.” 

“Yes, terrible influence, that girl.” 

“I like her. She likes me. Julia, too. Is Paul single?” 

“Paul is a serial monogamist.” 

“Does that make him husband material?” 

“I have no idea.” 

“Mmm. I am sorry about the sex,” Arthur says against Eames. 

“Well, you know, we can have sex in the morning. Or, more realistically, the day after tomorrow, when you’re actually feeling better. And then you can truly prove to me how fantastic days’ worth of foreplay is.”

“I could give you a hand job, maybe?” offers Arthur. “Hold you over?”

“I love that you think you’re coordinated enough for that right now.” 

Arthur makes a dismissive noise. “I could jerk you off in my sleep.” 

“Yeah, exactly. I believe you, I don’t need you to prove it for me.” 

“You’re a good pillow,” Arthur tells Eames. 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re a good designer, too. Like, a really good designer. I was so proud all night.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Eames says. “I’m glad you had a good time. I’m glad Alec didn’t ruin it for you.” 

“Alec,” says Arthur drowsily. “I forgot all about Alec.” 

“Good,” says Eames. 

Arthur turns his face into Eames’s chest and sleeps.


	89. Chapter 89

Arthur wakes up without the words to express how terrible he feels. 

Eames is still in bed, sitting up, typing away happily on Arthur’s laptop. 

Arthur looks at him and closes his eyes and groans into his pillow. He hopes Eames can interpret the groan as _kill me_. 

“Good morning,” says Eames cheerfully. “How are we feeling?” 

Arthur groans into his pillow again. This one can be interpreted as _kill me_ or _fuck you_. Either would be appropriate.

“Darling, you had too much champagne last night,” explains Eames. 

_Eames for stating the fucking obvious_ , thinks Arthur. He says into his pillow, “Why didn’t you stop me?” 

“Because you went off behind my back to do it. You hid in the willow tree nook with your two BFFs. Team Juliardne. Look at your adorable photo here on Twitter.” 

Arthur groans again. 

“‘So cute! But who is Julia?’” says Eames. “That’s the standard Twitter reaction, if you’re wondering.” 

“Eames,” Arthur says. 

“Yes?”

“Can you kill me?” 

Eames chuckles. “No. Listen. Have some water here. You’re terribly dehydrated. Sit up. There you go.” 

“If I’m sick all over you,” Arthur says, as Eames props him up, “it would serve you right.” 

“Have some water,” Eames says again. 

“I think it would just be easier if I died,” Arthur suggests again. 

“I would miss you,” Eames says. 

“I have the worst headache.” 

“Because you’re dehydrated. Drink some water.” 

Arthur drinks some water. Eames taps away on the laptop. Arthur looks around the bedroom and frowns at the suit on the floor. 

“Is that my suit on the floor?” he asks. 

“And you’re already feeling better,” notes Eames, without looking away from the laptop. 

“I don’t have to feel better to complain about mistreatment of nice clothing. I will do that on my _deathbed_ ,” vows Arthur. 

“I’ve no doubt,” says Eames, and hums as he does whatever it is he’s doing on the laptop. It’s _Paris-Seychelles_ , Arthur recognizes. 

He tips his head against Eames’s shoulder and mumbles, “My poor suit. My poor head. My poor stomach.” 

“I would tell you to get your bacteria army in line but this is a hangover. Resulting from alcohol. And alcohol kills bacteria, as we all know.” 

“And leaves this in its wake,” says Arthur, watching Eames on the computer. “What are you doing?” 

“Working,” answers Eames. “The early bird catches the worm and all that.” 

“All of a sudden you’re a fucking morning person,” complains Arthur. 

Eames laughs and noses a kiss into Arthur’s hair. Then he says, “How about eggs?” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Christ, are you crazy?” 

“Well, I’m in search of a nice, greasy breakfast,” Eames says. “And I have things to do.” He closes the laptop and rolls out of bed. 

Arthur blinks after him in surprise. “You’re getting up?” 

“I am. It’s Opposite Day in this household. Don’t spend all day in bed, darling.” Eames grins and ruffles his hair. 

Arthur says, “You can’t be serious. Come back to bed and cuddle with me.”

“I am serious. I’m sorry. I’ve got things that have to get done today. And they have to happen today because we film tomorrow. So. Finish that water and then get out of bed eventually, okay?” Eames kisses his forehead and heads to the bathroom. 

“Can you pick up my suit for me, please?” Arthur asks. 

“Nope,” Eames says from the bathroom. “I’m leaving that on the floor as incentive for you to get yourself out of bed.”

“You are cruel,” Arthur accuses. “When you were sick, I coddled you.” 

“You’re not sick, you’re hungover, and you’d feel better if you got up and took a shower and had some eggs and bacon with me.” 

“No, I wouldn’t. Is this a British thing? You think everything is cured by a greasy breakfast?” 

“It’s what we do in the old country,” Eames agrees. 

“Jesus, I’ll never live that down,” mutters Arthur as Eames turns the shower on. 

“No, you won’t!” calls Eames.

“How could you hear me over the sound of the shower?” Arthur demands. 

“A greasy breakfast is fact as a hangover cure, darling. You went to university. Didn’t you get roaringly drunk ever? Didn’t you follow that up with the most disgusting breakfasts in the world? Eggs are fantastically good for a hangover.” 

Arthur lies in bed and thinks about how he and Eames had very different college experiences. Arthur’s been hungover before, of course, but never in a situation where someone kept bringing up greasy breakfasts. It wasn’t like he belonged to some frat house or something. 

Arthur listens to Eames shower, listens to Eames dress. He hums and sings the whole time. Arthur puts his head under his pillow and tries to get his head to stop aching through sheer willpower. 

He must doze off because he jerks awake when Eames says, “Take this for your head, darling. And drink some more water.” 

Arthur peeks out from under the pillow and accepts Eames’s proffered pills and obediently drinks more water. 

“What about toast?” asks Eames. “I could make you some toast. No Marmite. I swear.”

Arthur shakes his head. “Not now.”

“Fine,” Eames says. And then, “Look, your suit is crying out in pain there on the floor.” 

Arthur glares at him. “Asshole,” he says. 

“Love you,” Eames replies, and gives him a little wave and practically skips out of the room. 

Arthur collapses back on the bed and looks at his poor, beleaguered, hopelessly wrinkled suit and wishes he had Ariadne’s phone number so he could text her _Fuck you and your terrible drinking choices_. Instead he takes a deep breath and forces himself out of bed.


	90. Chapter 90

Arthur does feel better after a shower. Not well enough to put a lot of effort into his appearance, though, so he pulls on a pair of Eames’s sweatpants and one of Eames’s t-shirts. Both way too big for him but he doesn’t want anything tailored at the moment and it’s not like _he_ owns baggy, shapeless clothing like this. 

Eames is in the kitchen making the world’s biggest racket with pots and pans and God knows what else. 

“My head,” Arthur says, sitting at the breakfast bar and putting his head down on it. 

“Darling!” he exclaims jubilantly upon seeing him. “You made it out of bed! What’s the prognosis? Think you’ll live?” 

“No,” answers Arthur, talking to the countertop. “And I know that you definitely will not live if you keep being so fucking cheerful.” 

Eames has the nerve to laugh at him. “Look,” he says. “I was optimistic and made you toast. And eggs. And bacon.” 

Arthur lifts his head and looks at the plate Eames puts down next to him. “You cooked all these things?” Arthur asks suspiciously. “Like, from scratch?” 

“I did,” Eames confirms. 

Arthur continues to study the food. Nothing looks burned beyond recognition. Arthur narrows his eyes thoughtfully and says slowly, “Can you cook, Eames?” 

“What’s that?” says Eames, turning the kitchen sink on for no reason Arthur can discern. 

“Hmm,” says Arthur, not fooled for a second. Well. He _was_ fooled for a lot of seconds but he’s on to Eames now. 

“You should eat some toast,” Eames says, turning the faucet off. “Your hangover is making you delusional and conspiracy-theory-y.” 

“‘Conspiracy-theory-y’ is not an actual thing,” says Arthur.

“Also argumentative,” remarks Eames.

“I’m always argumentative,” Arthur points out, nibbling at his toast. “That’s not the hangover.” 

“I prefer to use the word ‘passionate,’” says Eames. 

Arthur experimentally dips a corner of his toast into an egg yolk and says, “Why are you in such a good mood?” 

“We had a fun and successful party last night, you’re in love with me and I’m in love with you, you have very sweet and delightful friends who I like, we have fulfilling careers we both enjoy and more than enough money, and I didn’t have too much alcohol last night. What’s not to be in a good mood about?” 

Arthur, emboldened by how good the egg is, goes for a piece of bacon and says, “Well, when you put it that way—fuck, this bacon is good.”

“Greasy breakfast. Told you,” Eames beams at him.

“You’re smug and I hate you,” Arthur says. “Also, you really can cook, can’t you? You can cook and all this time you’ve been pretending—”

Eames turns the garbage disposal on. “What’s that?” he calls over the racket. 

“Bastard!” Arthur shouts at him. 

Naturally just as Paul walks into the kitchen. “Oh,” he says, looking embarrassed. “Is this a bad time? You said to come right in when I got here, but if this is a bad time—”

Eames turns off the garbage disposal. “No, I didn’t expect Arthur to get out of bed so I wasn’t expecting you to get to encounter this charming tableau.” 

Paul eyes Arthur and says, “That is the least put-together I’ve ever seen you. I take it the party was a success?” 

Arthur says, “Eames destroyed my suit.” 

Paul looks uncomfortable. “I don’t want to know about—”

“Not like that,” Eames says. “Let’s move on. Paul is here because we have to get everything from the party back today. The trees and the playground equipment and all of that. So we’re supervising take-down and removal.” 

“Oh, that was on loan,” Arthur realizes. “Of course. Go ahead. Go work while I enjoy this really incredibly delicious breakfast that you somehow accidentally managed to make without knowing anything about cooking.” 

“Sometimes a breakfast comes together in such a way that one can only blame serendipity,” Eames says gravely. 

“Uh-huh,” agrees Arthur dryly. “Nice to see you, Paul.” 

“Yeah, glad you had fun last night.” 

“Oh!” Arthur suddenly remembers. “Are you single?” 

Paul blinks, looking startled. “Um. If this is a sex club thing…” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “We _do not_ run a sex club. I have this friend Julia and she is really great. Isn’t she really great, Eames?” 

“She’s really great,” Eames confirms. 

“She wanted to be set up with you,” says Arthur. “So, if you’re single and if you’re interested, you know.” Arthur waves his hand around. It happens to be a hand holding a piece of toast at the moment, so then Arthur gets distracted and takes a bite of his piece of toast. 

“Is she a designer?” Paul asks. “I mean, no offense, but designers are crazy, you know?” 

“I do know,” Arthur agrees. “But honestly the crazy’s a good thing.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” says Paul, sounding dubious about it. 

“Anyway, she’s not a designer. She’s a makeup artist on the show.” 

“She is a little crazy, though,” says Eames. 

“A little,” Arthur admits. “But it’s good. I swear. A little crazy keeps your life fun.”

“Paul, you are my witness to this, so we can remind him of this the next time he looks askance at one of my design ideas,” says Eames. 

“A _little_ crazy,” Arthur clarifies. “A crazy amount of crazy is just…crazy. I’m usually more eloquent than this. Never mind me. Julia’s great. Eames, talk Paul into it.” 

Eames gives him a little two-fingered salute and then says, “And now we will let Paul escape this conversation.” 

“Thank you for my Michelin-starred breakfast!” Arthur calls after Eames as he and Paul head out of the kitchen toward the public rooms. 

“What was that, darling? I couldn’t hear you!” Eames calls back. 

“Fucking liar,” Arthur says good-naturedly, and mops up his yolk.


	91. Chapter 91

Arthur spends his day attempting to do actual work, although it’s not his most productive perusal of real estate listings ever. Eventually he gives up and brings the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket from the bedroom to his office and curls up on the couch and lets himself look at Twitter. 

And what he learns is that the initial reactions of sympathy for Alec that Arthur witnessed don’t last. 

_I don’t know, you guys, I’m not sure I trust Alec here…_

_This has come out of nowhere, don’t you think? I mean, he’s never said anything like this about Eames before. And he’s had plenty of opportunity._

_I wouldn’t want to work with my ex-boyfriend either but Alec hasn’t acted like it’s been bothering him before this._

_Alec isn’t all upset about Arthur taking his boyfriend, he’s all upset about Arthur taking his spotlight. #arthur4everything_

_Idgi, Arthur tried to be really nice this episode??? What is Alec all mad about??????_

_Arthur was all LIKE A BOSS that entire episode and Alec was all NOT LIKE A BOSS. #whateveralec_

_I still think Alec needs to get laid. BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN EAMES._

_There’s some pun I could make about Alec being worried about Alec Hart and not his heart or something but it’d take effort. #insertpunhere_

Arthur doesn’t _really_ care but it is nice to know that not everyone on the Internet hates him and that Alec’s blatant manipulation hasn’t fooled everyone. Considering how easily it fooled Arthur, Arthur’s actually impressed by Twitter’s attitude. 

There are a few tweets from contestants about what a good time they had at the party. Scott is all about the spiral of the slide and its relationship to the spiral of a snail’s shell or something. Gon says, _Great party, greater hats_ with a picture of him and Ariadne looking happy and grinning. Ariadne tweets, _WAY TOO MUCH CHAMPAGNE FLOWING AT THE #NEXTBIGTHING PARTY._ Arthur tweets at her just _I blame you_ and leaves it at that. 

There are no tweets from Alec. Or from Misty Rainbow. 

Arthur tweets, _Thanks to everyone who came to the viewing party last night! Hope you had fun!_ and then _Julia is our extremely talented makeup artist and you should all tweet #hijulia._

Eames retweets his tweet and adds, _It’s true. Without Julia we all look like trolls._

And then Eames walks into the office. 

“Hello,” Arthur says. “I was going to give you hell for tweeting instead of helping Paul.” 

“We’re all cleaned up,” Eames says, collapsing onto the other end of the couch. “Now I can be magnificently lazy like you.”

“I worked today,” Arthur defends himself. 

“And then you played around on Twitter,” Eames says. 

“Well,” Arthur says. “Champagne almost killed me. I deserved some recovery time.”

“Agreed. How are you feeling?” 

“Much better. Rehydrated.” 

“Good.” 

Arthur looks at Eames, who has leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. He considers, then he says, “There’s something I know about Alec.”

Eames opens his eyes and tips his head to look at Arthur and looks expectant. 

“He’s sleeping with Misty Rainbow,” Arthur says. 

“Is he? Well, they did seem pretty cozy last night. And I guess there was a Twitter movement to get him laid. How do you know this? Did you see them last night?” 

Arthur shakes his head. “Actually, I didn’t see Alec last night after…the whole thing in the hallway.” 

“He left,” Eames says. “I asked Scott if he’d seen him, while we were off talking about the slide, and he told me he saw him leave not long after Mal and Cobb left. So don’t worry. He didn’t get into our house.” 

“Well, our alarm didn’t go off,” Arthur points out, “so I assumed our house was safe.” 

“And the hair was still in place,” Eames says proudly. 

“The what?” asks Arthur blankly.

“The hair. I put a hair on our bedroom door so that I could tell if anyone opened it while we were at the party.” 

Arthur stares at him. “A hair on our bedroom door? That was your security system? We have a fucking _alarm_ , Eames.” 

“Right, but what if Alec found a way around our alarm?” 

“Is he fucking James Bond and you never told me?” 

“I wanted to be sure, okay? And the hair was still there, so I’m sure now.” 

“Well. Thank you for that. Have you installed laser beams in our hallways, too? What about a few exploding pens in strategic places throughout the houses?” 

“You’re hilarious,” Eames tells him. 

“Thank you,” says Arthur. “Ari has a video.” 

“A video of what?” 

“Alec and Misty Rainbow making out. From the night before the party. He went to see her at the contestants’ house.” 

“Is that a thing he makes a habit of doing?” 

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “But it doesn’t say a whole lot about his impartiality, does it?” 

“No,” Eames says. “And even if the no-fraternization rule has been eased, I’m sure we still have a no-shagging-the-contestants rule in place.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” says Arthur. “I don’t think Mal would care. I don’t think Mal would do anything to jeopardize the stupid love-triangle soap opera she’s set up here.” 

“I agree. But the Internet would care.”

Arthur is silent. He runs his hand along the soft, feathery border of his blanket and thinks. Then he says slowly, “What do you want to do with the video?” 

“What do _you_ want to do?” Eames counters. 

“Nothing,” Arthur admits after a moment. “I don’t think anything we could do would look anything other than petty. And I don’t really want anyone countering with anything about me and Ariadne.” 

“You had a five-minute conversation with Ariadne in a hallway. Alec is fucking Misty Rainbow. There’s a bit of a difference.” 

“Yeah, but there were rumors about Ariadne and me. There could be more rumors. I don’t want Ari hurt. So I don’t know. I think we don’t do anything with the video. I think this will probably all come crashing down on Alec’s head eventually anyway, without our help.” Arthur tries to read Eames’s expression and can’t. “What do you think? Am I being an idiot?” 

“No,” Eames says after a second. “You’re right that it’d look bad for us, like we’re vicious and vindictive people who can’t let Alec move on, or something. And if Ari leaked it, they’d still blame us. They’d say we manufactured it or something.” 

“Exactly. It’s basically useless.”

“Except for the fact that now we know it’s happening so we can try to watch out to see if he’s playing favorites on the show.” 

“Right,” Arthur agrees. “That’s what I think.” 

“So we have a plan, then,” Eames says. 

“We have a plan with regard to Alec. And that’s that we just refuse to engage with him. Like, absolutely. I know I’ve been bad at that, but I’m going to be better.” 

“That’s Alec taken care of. How do you want to approach Mal?”

“Well, I don’t trust her. I mean, not that I ever did. But I think we just get in, do our jobs, and get out. And we never work with her again.” 

“Also agreed. Should we be terribly dull and never banter for her?” 

“I don’t want to hurt the show,” Arthur says. “For the contestants’ sake, not for hers. I could give a fuck about her future career.” 

“Yeah,” Eames agrees.

“We are professionals,” Arthur says. “We have always been professionals. We’re good at what we do and we have a reputation for it and that’ll win out over the rest of this. So we just go and do our jobs, and fuck the rest of it.” 

“Yes,” says Eames, and tips a smile at him. 

Arthur shifts forward so he can kiss him. Lightly, because he’s feeling better, but not quite like he’s up for a bout of energetic sex. He says, “I meant what I told you last night.” 

“That you could jerk me off in your sleep?”

“That you’re a really good designer and I was so proud of you the whole night. It was so gorgeous and clever and you’re the best, too.” 

“Thank you.” Eames looks pleased. “I admit I was showing off a little bit. Can’t have these young cubs thinking that I’m a has-been, can we?” 

“They never would,” Arthur smiles. “Not after last night. Eames, does Alec design at all, or does he just have other people do it for him and he swoops in at the end to put a hand dramatically over his heart?” 

Eames laughs. “He used to design some, at least, although he always had a decent-sized crew supplementing his ideas. I’ve no idea what he does these days.” 

“I’m glad you’re an actual designer.” 

“I’m glad you’re an actual real estate agent. I’m glad we’re both real boys with real feelings and real dicks.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, “this was supposed to be a romantic moment.” 

“Oh, did I ruin it?” asks Eames innocently. 

“Completely. Entirely. But I have a way you can make it up to me.” 

“Do you now?” 

“I think you should cook me something,” says Arthur. 

“I’m a trifle deaf in this ear,” Eames says. “Speak a little louder next time.” 

“You lazy, Willy-Wonka-quoting _bastard_ , _seriously_ ,” says Arthur, laughing into their kiss.


	92. Chapter 92

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I try desperately to credit all the inspiration I get from you guys, but I inevitably fail so I beg forgiveness for those lapses. 
> 
> In this chapter, I am fairly sure that addiemay get credit for the Jaul portmanteau name. 
> 
> In other news, "Armes" has a Tumblr now: http://armes5eva.tumblr.com/

Arthur wakes Eames up the next morning with a blowjob. He figures it’s the least he can do to make up for the debacle of the viewing party night. 

Eames says, “Well, there you have it: This day can only go downhill from here.” 

Arthur says, “Sorry about the unnecessary amounts of foreplay the other night.” 

“Hey, I did turn down your gracious offer of a hand job, so it was partly my own fault. How many men can boast getting such a charming offer from such a devastatingly attractive individual?” 

“I don’t know how you turned it down,” says Arthur wryly. “I’m sure I looked sexy as hell at the time.” 

“You always look sexy as hell,” Eames assures him and stretches underneath him. “Come take a shower with me and I’ll return the favor, hmm?” 

“How many men can boast getting such a charming offer from such a devastatingly attractive individual?” says Arthur. 

“And then both of us can complain about how the rest of our days will inevitably be worse given how brilliantly they started,” Eames suggests. 

“Well, I don’t know,” says Arthur. “That remains to be seen for me. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” 

“You’re such an arsehole,” Eames says, laughing. “You’re just lucky you’re a cute one.” 

***

The day’s filming will be the elimination that resulted from the house hunter votes and then the challenge announcement. 

Arthur is tense as the car drives them to the studio, and Eames picks up on it, of course, and says, “Goodness, I thought our morning activities would help that,” and kisses the side of Arthur’s neck. “Are you nervous about Alec?” 

“No,” Arthur admits. He’s not. He can’t imagine what Alec could do that would make him nervous, since there’s nothing Alec could do that would make Eames leave him. So Arthur says truthfully, “I’m nervous about the elimination.”

“I think Ari’s safe.” 

“I think she is, too. But someone’s going to go, and I kind of like all of them now. It was easier when I could say that some of them were crazy and needed to go. I mean, they’re still all mostly crazy but I’ve gotten to know them and we’re going to lose someone I like and understand.” 

“Even Misty Rainbow?” remarks Eames. 

“Misty Rainbow makes out a lot with Alec Hart. You know who else I know who used to make out a lot with Alec Hart?” Arthur gives him a meaningful look. 

Eames says, “I don’t know if I would say _a lot_.” 

“Was it more than once?” asks Arthur. 

“Well, yes—”

“Then that’s ‘a lot’ when it comes to Alec Hart. Anyway, I’m nervous over who we’re going to lose. And I’m probably just going to be nervous the rest of the show now. This is a terrible show. I’m never nervous on our show.” 

“I know. Well, if it’s any consolation, the fact that this show is a huge hit is a boon to these designers. It’s advertising such as they’ll never get anywhere else. A ton of exposure. So hopefully we’ve done our part in highlighting their strengths and getting them started and on their way.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. 

“And you’re still just going to be nervous, aren’t you?”

“You know me,” says Arthur, trying a small smile so he doesn’t seem so grim. 

“I don’t know how you can ever possibly think that you’re not one of the nicest people on the planet,” says Eames, and kisses the top of his head. 

***

When they get to the studio and into makeup, Julia hisses at them, “There has been no sign of Alec.” 

“Well, did he get in the car the network sent for him?” asks Eames. 

Julia, who had been leaning toward Arthur to start on his makeup, straightens now and frowns at Eames. “The network sends you _cars_?”

“No,” says Eames, after a second. “The network does not send us cars and we are definitely not spoiled-brat celebrity divas.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Julia dubiously, and turns back to Arthur. “So. Thanks for inviting me the other night. It was a fun party, right?” 

“Yeah, except for all day yesterday,” says Arthur. 

“Why, what happened yesterday?” asks Julia, sounding interested. 

Arthur just looks at her. “You know. The hangover.”

Julia looks shocked. “Really? Were you hungover?”

“You weren’t hungover?” Arthur asks. 

“No! Of course not! I’m sorry you were so sick!”

“You’re such a lightweight, darling,” says Eames from the couch. 

“I’m not a lightweight,” snaps Arthur. “There was a lot of champagne ingested. She’s some kind of freak alcohol faerie or something.” 

“I think an alcohol faerie is a leprechaun,” says Julia, “and that would be you.” 

“I am not a leprechaun!” 

“Just like you don’t own a sex club.”

“I _don’t_ own a sex club!” 

“Tell me the truth,” says Julia. “Do you know Sebastian Stan? Because I’m okay with being set up with Sebastian Stan. In case you thought maybe I was turned off by him being a sex club member. I’m totally not.” 

“Number one, I don’t have a sex club for Sebastian Stan to be a member of. Number two, I don’t know Sebastian Stan. Number three, I talked to Paul for you.” 

“Paul!” exclaims Julia. “Yeah, I was thinking about it yesterday, and we’ve got a bad portmanteau name.” 

“A bad what?” says Arthur. 

“Like, what would it be? Paulia? Jaul? Pulia? They’re bad, see?”

“Armes is a bad portmanteau name,” points out Eames. “That’s not a reason to not have a relationship with someone.” 

“Whereas my portmanteau name with Sebastian Stan would be Sebalia and that’s pretty awesome, right? We could, like, name our first kid Sebalia.” 

Eames shakes his head. 

Arthur can’t shake his head because Julia is applying his makeup but he does say, “You are a little bit crazy.” 

“It’s why you love me,” Julia grins at me, and then adds, “In all seriousness, I appreciate you being so sweet about all of this. I did go a little crazy when I realized Yusuf was in on Alec ambushing the two of you that way at the end of the episode. I mean, would a little heads-up have killed him? Wouldn’t that have been the thing to do as just, like, a decent individual? But you don’t need to bother this poor Paul guy for me. Tell him he’s safe from the nasty blind date you were going to set him up on. And thank you for the Twitter hashtag, it made my day yesterday.” 

“I’m glad,” Arthur says, because he is. 

“Julia, men are overrated,” Eames announces. “You should go for a woman.” 

“Yeah, you two would be enough to turn me off men forever,” Julia agrees lightly. 

“If you’re seriously upset about Yusuf just because he filmed Alec’s little performance,” starts Arthur. 

Which of course is when Alec walks in. 

Arthur shuts his mouth. 

Alec narrows his eyes at him a little bit. Or maybe that’s a trick of the shadow cast by the fedora. 

Eames says cheerfully, “Good morning. How’s your day going so far? It’s quite a lovely day, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Why are there network execs here?” is what Alec demands. 

Arthur exchanges a glance with Eames. First he’s heard about network execs being there. 

Eames looks back at Alec. “Why are there what?” he asks.


	93. Chapter 93

The network has sent two execs. One of them, Maya, is the one who signed Arthur to his original _Love It or List It_ contract and to all of his renewal contracts since then. Arthur’s never asked Eames outright but he assumes she’s the same for Eames. Maya is clearly there for them and winks at them in greeting as they walk in. 

The other exec is Portia, who is the exec who first came to them with this _Next Big Thing_ proposal. Well, came to their agent, because Arthur and Eames are big enough to have an agent now to handle their entertainment booking, and it was their agent who set up the meeting with Portia for them on that very fateful day. Arthur thinks he’d do everything over again if he had the chance but he also thinks that he had very innocent unrealistic expectations about what doing the show was going to mean to them. 

They meet in Mal’s office. Mal is effusive as Arthur and Eames and Alec file in, saying, “Here they are! The talent! The draw! _Bonjour_ , my lovely boys!” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow and wonders if his face looks dubious. Probably he looks like that medieval tapestry meme Eames is so taken with. 

Alec seems nervous, fidgeting a little with the brim of his hat and laughing hollowly about the network royalty coming to see them. 

“Oh, you’re the network royalty,” says Portia easily, with a shark smile. 

Arthur likes Maya a lot more than he likes Portia. If Arthur hadn’t liked Maya, he would never have ended up in television. But Maya had made it sound like a lark, the easiest money he’d ever make, and then he’d met the love of his life, so probably Arthur should be sending Maya flowers once a month or something. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” protests Alec weakly. 

Arthur wants to point out that Alec work a fucking _crown_ to their party and now he’s going to pretend he doesn’t see himself as royalty? But Arthur thinks saying that would violate his resolution not to engage with Alec. 

Anyway, Arthur’s more interested in the nerves Alec is displaying. He wonders if this is a meeting about fraternizing with the contestants. He wonders if Ariadne leaked that video to the powers that be. 

What Portia says next, though, is nothing about broken rules. Portia smiles her shark smile and says, “You boys are our three favorite people at the network.” 

Alec stops fiddling with the brim of his hat. 

Eames says casually, “Good. Does that mean you’re getting all of us new cars or something?” 

Portia laughs. She has a fake laugh that reminds Arthur of Alec. Arthur hates people who fake-laugh at Eames, because Eames is genuinely hilarious and can’t people have senses of humor, honestly? “Good one. But no. We’ve never had a show become such a runaway overnight hit. Unless we count _Love It or List It_.” Portia executes a little flourish in their direction. 

“And _Hart in Your Home_ ,” Alec adds. 

“ _Love It or List It_ has a much bigger viewership than _Hart in Your Home_ ,” Maya tells him. 

Alec doesn’t look too happy about that, even though it is fact. Not that Arthur honestly spends a lot of time looking at their ratings but he may have looked to make sure they beat Alec’s show. Mostly because he wants to be able to maintain a little faith in humanity. 

“Anyway,” continues Portia, “there is enormous interest in this show. It’s become appointment television for social media. Not many shows can be guaranteed live viewers that way, but no one wants to miss out on joining in on the live party. The other night Twitter trended ‘NBT viewing party’ and we didn’t even _air_ the viewing party.” 

“The viewing party was in our home,” Eames says, “and we didn’t want to—”

“Oh, we’re not upset about that,” says Portia. 

“Of course you guys want to maintain some sense of privacy,” adds Maya. “We get that.” 

_You’re my favorite, Maya_ , Arthur sends to her telepathically. 

Maybe Maya is telepathic, because she winks at him. 

“We’re just saying,” says Portia, “that our point is that this show is so hot right now that _even when we air nothing, it trends_.” Portia really does manage to put emphasis on every single one of those words. It’s impressive. She also leans forward to be closer to them. She is smiling from ear-to-ear, but it’s all teeth, a the-better-to-eat-you-with smile. 

“What’s your real point?” asks Eames flatly, because Eames is the sort of person who can afford to be blunt and that’s just considered charming and _British_. 

“Our point is that we’ve decided to do a live finale,” says Portia. “We’ll have a live studio audience. We’ll run a contest for it to get them in. Social media will go crazy. It’s going to be a two-hour extravaganza, and at the end of it we’ll reveal the winner.” 

“Two hours?” says Arthur. “What are we going to do for two hours?” 

“Talk about the show, of course,” says Portia. “Surely you’re aware of the intense scrutiny the show has been under. People will have all sorts of questions. We’ll even take live questions from the Internet!” 

Arthur can just imagine: seven million questions about sex clubs and love triangles and _did he have an inappropriate relationship with Ariadne?_

His lack of enthusiasm must show on his face, because Portia coos at him, “Don’t be glum, Dimples,” and chucks him under the chin. 

Arthur thinks, _I will kill you with the power of my mind_. 

But Portia stays alive, so apparently he doesn’t have that power. 

“Seriously, you’ll love it. It’ll be great. You’ll just sit around and do your thing and reminisce about how fun this has all been.”

Arthur can’t help the fact that he echoes, “Reminisce about how fun this has all been.”

“Exactly.” Portia shark-smiles at him as if she genuinely believes this show has been _fun_. “And, of course, that’s when we’ll announce the second season of the show, which we at the network are all very hopeful you’ll sign up for.” 

Eames says, “Second season.” 

Alec exclaims, “Second season!” 

Arthur, because he is No Longer Engaging, thinks to himself, _Fuck_.


	94. Chapter 94

Alec says, “I think a second season sounds like a great idea. I mean, I’d like to see what terms you’re offering and—”

“No,” interrupts Arthur. Here’s the thing: He is Being a Bigger Person and he is Not Engaging and he really Doesn’t Give a Fuck About Alec Anymore For Real Serious but he is over this whole thing. He is over the _drama_ of it. He wants to go back to the way his life used to be, the way it still is on the days when they don’t have to deal with Alec. He doesn’t want to deal with Alec anymore. Eames is going to propose to him again at some point in the near future and he’s going to say yes and they’re going to plan a wedding and they’re going to embark on this brand new stage of their life together and it’s going to have _absolutely nothing to do with Alec_. 

Portia says, “Oh, I completely understand, Arthur. Trust the real estate agent to be the hardball negotiator.” Portia wags her finger at him like he’s a naughty dog and chuckles like he’s a remarkable and amusing trained bear and Arthur must look like he’s about to kill her because Eames jumps in. 

“We go through our agent, of course,” Eames says. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” adds on Alec hastily. “Me, too. Won’t sign anything without going through my agent.” 

“You call our agent, you tell our agent your terms, we’ll get back to you.” Eames stands like the conversation is over. 

“Of course, of course, totally,” says Portia soothingly, like he’s a skittish horse. Arthur wonders why can’t she just react to them like they’re _people_? “You know, we just thought, out of deference to how great you’ve been, we wanted to show our gratitude, we’d do you the honor of coming down here in person and saying it to your face first. Communicating through agents, it can be so impersonal, you know? When you know that we here at the network consider you _family_.”

Alec actually puts his hand against his heart as if he is so fucking touched by this speech he can’t stand it. 

Eames says, “Same here, Mum,” and claps Portia on the shoulder heartily. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and lets himself out of Mal’s office. Behind him, he can hear Alec saying to Portia, “I’d love to hear the terms, though. I mean, I’ll have to check with my agent but—”

The door swings shut behind Eames. Eames lifts his eyebrows at Arthur. Arthur shakes his head, because there’s no way he’s getting into all of it right there outside Mal’s office. 

They’re halfway down the hallway, still silent, when Maya calls, “Hey, guys! Wait up!” 

“Maya, we’re not really in the mood,” Eames says, as they both halt and turn toward her reluctantly. “This show has been the opposite of ‘fun’ and you’ve got to be—”

“Yeah, Portia’s an idiot. Forget her. You two are my guys and I want to know: What does it take for you to sign for another season?” 

“Nothing,” Arthur says. “There is nothing you could give me that would make me sign on for another season. There is literally no amount of money in the world.” 

“Are you sure?” asks Maya. “Because we’ve been authorized to offer a lot of money.” 

Arthur wants to snap _Yes, I’m sure_. But Arthur looks at Eames and thinks of how fanciful Eames’s designs can be, of how much money it costs to constantly try to defy the laws of physics. They’re well-off and Arthur watches their investments and there’s no reason to think that they really _need_ extra money, but there’s also no reason to turn extra money down. Not extra money that Eames could use to pay for his indoor forest. All because Arthur doesn’t like working with his ex-boyfriend? How selfish can Arthur be? 

But while he’s thinking about it Eames says, “We don’t have a price on this one, Maya. You make your show with Alec and Mal. Good luck to you. I’m sure it’ll stay dramatic and highly-rated. Alec’s really good at manufacturing drama. They both are.” 

“Are they the hold-up?” Maya asks, as Eames turns away. “Because they’re negotiable.” 

Eames pauses. “They’re what?” 

“The network wants the two of you,” Maya says simply. “Alec and Mal are negotiable. If you won’t work with them, they’re gone.” 

“Portia’s going over renewal terms with Alec right now,” Arthur points out. 

“And they’ll have a buy-out clause,” Maya shrugs. “So we’ll buy him out.” 

“Why would the network want us without Alec?” asks Arthur. “The whole reason this show is a hit is because it’s a fucking soap opera.” 

“That’s not what our numbers show,” says Maya. “Our numbers show that people are watching the show for you. In fact, people claim to want Alec off the show. Now sometimes there’s a difference between what people say they want and what they actually want, but in this case Alec’s a pain in the ass—between you and me—and we’re fine with getting rid of him if we need to to keep you guys. You’re why the viewers are tuning in. Just you.” 

“Us?” says Arthur blankly, uncomprehending. 

“Arthur, the two of you are already carrying a hit show where you spend two scenes together an episode. This is a show where you’re together a lot. And you’re surprised that your fans are into it?” 

Arthur…is surprised by everything in show business. It’s why he’s bad at show business. 

“We need to talk to our agent, Maya,” Eames says after a moment of silence. 

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted you guys to know that everything’s on the table. Call us, yeah?” Maya even does that little _call me_ gesture with her fingers wiggling at the side of her face, but she does it ironically, because that’s how Maya is. 

“What the fuck are our lives?” breathes Arthur, watching her walk back down the hallway toward Mal’s office. “I’m a fucking _real estate agent_.” 

“Darling, it’s time you realized,” says Eames wryly. “You’re basically the most famous real estate agent on Earth right now. I mean, not that there’s a lot of competition for that title. But still: You’re it.”

Mal’s office door opens and Mal steps out and barks at them, “We need to get this filming underway! We’re behind schedule!” as if it’s all their fault. 

Arthur sighs. “Let’s get this filming out of the way and then we’ll talk about everything. The only thing more stressful than considering a second season is the fucking live finale idea.” Arthur makes a face. “You know how you said our days were going to be all downhill after the blowjobs?” 

“Yeah,” Eames says. 

“That didn’t even need to be a good blowjob, and this day still would have been way downhill.” 

“So even a bad blowjob from me is better than network shenanigans, is what you’re saying. Darling, the way you inflate my ego is shameful, you should really stop, it can’t be good for me.” 

“Filming!” Mal yells at them from the end of the hallway. 

“I think she’d be in a better mood if Cobb were better in bed,” remarks Eames. 

“Thinking about Cobb in bed is the only thing that could have made this day worse. So thank you, Eames.” 

“I live to serve,” says Eames.


	95. Chapter 95

“So,” Mal says, once they’re all assembled next to Alec, who is being positioned for optimum lighting. “We have to do an elimination, we have to announce the challenge, and we have to announce the new live finale.” 

“Oh!” exclaims Alec, while very carefully not moving his head at all. “Can I announce the new live finale?” 

“I’ll do the elimination,” Eames offers. 

“That leaves you with the challenge,” says Mal, handing Arthur his envelope. “Okay! Let the contestants in!” She bustles off to supervise this. 

Alec says, “Second season, eh? We’re a hit. I knew we would be. I know you didn’t always agree with my tactics, Artie, but I know what makes for good television. You can thank me anytime.” 

Arthur stares at him. 

Eames says, “You have done a lot with _Hart in Your Home_.” 

“Built it up from scratch,” Alec agrees proudly. “You should have stuck with me, Eames.” 

“Of course,” says Eames blandly, “ _Love It or List It_ has better ratings, so it would appear that Arthur and I know a thing or two ourselves about television.” 

There’s a moment of silence. 

Alec says, “Well, sure, I mean, if you want to base things on _ratings_ \--”

“What would you like to base things on?” asks Eames pleasantly. 

Arthur takes the opportunity to say, “Isn’t the weather nice today? I think spring’s finally arrived.” 

Eames laughs like he is hilarious and kisses his cheek. Alec just blinks at him blankly. 

The contestants file in in a burst of chattering noise. 

“The weather, darling?” Eames murmurs in his ear.

“We’re supposed to not be engaging,” Arthur hisses at him. 

“He makes it so _easy_ , though, darling. And I notice you didn’t thank him.”

“Well, there’s not engaging and then there’s not indulging his fucking delusions,” Arthur points out. “I wasn’t indulging his delusions; you’re provoking him.”

Eames noses behind his ear and says, “Let me make it up to you.” 

“If you’re going to offer me sex, know that I’m aware that is self-serving and not at all you making anything up to me.” 

“I was going to offer to cook for you,” says Eames innocently, as he straightens away from him, “but if you cannot be appeased, then never mind, I shan’t insult you any further.” Eames shrugs. 

Arthur is too busy gaping at him to say anything and by the time he’s able to collect himself enough to basically beg for the cooking, Alec has begun calling out to the crowd of contestants, “Hello! Hello! Can I have your attention, please?” 

The contestants fall obediently silent. 

Arthur says into Eames’s ear, “ _Yes_ , I want you to cook for me—”

“Shh,” replies Eames languidly. “Alec is giving a speech and you know I love Alec’s speeches.”

Alec is indeed giving a speech. “I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Arthur and Eames for opening up their home to us for such a delightful party. Our homes, as we all know, are, in fact, our _hearts_.” Alec settles his hand on his chest in that gesture Arthur thinks he’s going to keep having nightmares about when this is all over. “And I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that it was so lovely to see the inside of your hearts, Eames, Arthur. It has been a difficult road for all of us, as it is always is when one’s heart is too involved.” He micro-turns back toward the contestants. “You may not know this, but Eames and I used to date, and the conclusion of our relationship was a very tumultuous, tempestuous time for me, and it is perhaps true that the scar on my heart did not heal correctly. You may not know this about scars, but they are areas with lesser feeling, because our skin protects itself from further pain in that area. Yes, that is indeed how wise and wondrous the human body is.” 

Arthur looks out at the crowd because Arthur is Not Engaging and if Arthur keeps looking at Alec he is definitely going to end up fucking engaging. Ariadne is standing next to Gon with her eyebrows skidded so high in disbelief they’re basically at her hairline. Gon is listening with an intent expression on his face, like he’s trying to translate Greek and knows absolutely no Greek. 

“But we can teach our scars to feel again,” drones on Alec. “If we acknowledge that we did not heal them correctly, then we can find our way forward. There is hope for all of us, and I wanted you all to know that.” Alec micro-turns back toward Arthur and Eames, hand back on his heart. “Thank you.” 

Arthur has no idea what they’re being thanked for. Mostly he’s thinking that Alec really is going all-in on this ridiculous story about how much he was in love with Eames and how broken-hearted he was and what the fuck is Alec’s obsession with all this fake gratitude, anyway? 

Eames says very gravely, “You are so very welcome, Alec. We are so glad that you have taken all of us on this astonishing, really quite unbelievable journey. Quite unbelievable.” 

Alec gives him a little narrow-eyed look. 

Eames clears his throat and says, “Now then. Moving on. We unfortunately have an elimination to deal with.” 

The contestants, who all looked to be in varying stages of _what the fuck_ , except for Misty Rainbow, who looked starry-eyed, and Ariadne, who looked like she was taking furious mental notes for her tell-all memoir, appropriately sober immediately. 

“As you all remember, last challenge involved staging an open house. Our very own real estate agent extraordinaire Arthur showed your rooms to a number of real-life house hunters, and they ranked the rooms, and the lowest score according to their rankings is who will be eliminated. Before I read the name, though, I want to commend all of you for some really lovely and also provocative rooms. As ever, they were inspirations to behold.” Eames opens his envelope and, after a second, reads, “Jess, I’m sorry to say—”

“Later!” Jess says, and flashes everyone the peace sign as she leaves. 

“That’s a very rude gesture in the old country,” remarks Eames softly, under the buzz of general bewilderment in the room. 

“She’s sending a very complex message,” Arthur agrees drily. 

“How sad,” says Alec mournfully, because Alec is apparently the worst at reading the mood of a room ever. “How very sad. But, alas, we all must make our good-byes, our farewells, our _auf wiedersehens_. Such is life. _C’est la vie_ , as the French among us would say. It is full of such—”

“Arthur has a new challenge for all of you,” Eames interrupts loudly. 

“Before we get to the challenge,” Alec jumps back in, trying to glare at Eames out of the corner of his eye because he can’t turn his head, “we have a very exciting announcement. Due to the success of the show, the finale has been extended into a two-hour live extravaganza!” 

The contestants make sort of vaguely impressed noises. Arthur doesn’t blame them: It’s not like they know which of them will still be around for that, so it’s hard for them to get excited.

“Isn’t that exciting?” prompts Alec, who clearly expected more of a reaction. 

Ariadne says, “Yay,” in a small voice. 

Eames snorts with suppressed laughter next to Arthur. 

“Okay,” announces Arthur, who’s had enough of today in general, “I’m going to announce the challenge. Design an outdoor living room. Good luck!”


	96. Chapter 96

Their agent was Eames’s agent before he was their agent. When Arthur first signed with _Love It or List It_ , he didn’t have an agent. He made his living selling houses. This whole “be on television” idea was ridiculous. He wasn’t going to go out and get an _agent_. That seemed like the sort of absurd egotistical thing that Arthur despised. 

He survived without an agent for the show’s first, second, and third seasons. He did his own negotiating, and the network sent him contracts and he read through them himself. Arthur’s a real estate agent; he’s decent at reading contracts. Plus, he knows a lot of real estate lawyers, so he had them look at the contracts, too. They all complained that they weren’t entertainment lawyers and not qualified for this stuff. The thought of hiring an entertainment lawyer seemed almost fictional in its foolishness so Arthur would tell them, “I just want to make sure I’m not signing away my internal organs or something.” 

After he got together with Eames, it came out that he didn’t have an agent. Eames had been getting dressed for some meet-and-greet con event he was doing, and Eames had asked him why he wasn’t going. Arthur had had to admit that he was vague about managing the celebrity side of his life; he still didn’t understand how he _had_ a celebrity side of his life. 

Eames, gaping at him, had said, “But you don’t need to manage it, your agent will do it for you.” 

And Arthur had said, “I don’t have an agent. I _am_ an agent.” 

Eames had sputtered in shock like Arthur had just admitted to never brushing his teeth or something equally heinous, and then he had introduced him to Saito. 

“Different sorts of agents,” Saito had said, frowning, when Arthur had given him his _I don’t have an agent, I am an agent_ line. 

“I know,” Arthur had said. “It’s a joke.” 

“Hmm,” Saito had said. 

Arthur still has no idea how Eames ended up with Saito as an agent. When he’d asked Eames about it, Eames had said, “Reputation,” and Arthur still doesn’t know if he’d meant Saito’s reputation or Eames’s reputation. Arthur has never asked for clarification because he kind of adores the devil-may-care ambiguity of that answer. It’s so Eamesian that Arthur likes to take it out and polish it and admire it when he can’t sleep at night. 

Anyway, Arthur finds Eames and Saito to be strange bedfellows but Arthur fucking adores Saito. Not in a “come over for dinner” way. Arthur would be terrified to have Saito over for dinner. Probably Saito is some sort of demon who would ingest their souls along with the fried calamari. But if Saito is a demon, he is _their_ demon. Saito is practical and no-nonsense and absolutely vicious when it comes to their negotiations. Arthur might be a different sort of agent but he’s still an agent and he appreciates the art of negotiation and Saito’s a fucking master of it and Arthur feels in very good hands with Saito even if Arthur also feels like Saito could have him killed by twitching his little finger. 

When they’re done filming, they both have messages on their phones from Saito about an “interesting offer” from the network, and Eames remarks, “They mean business. Shall we Skype with Saito tonight?” He’s already firing off a text to Saito. 

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Arthur says, because he _doesn’t_. He’s in fits of indecision and feeling itchy about not knowing what ought to happen next and he’s miserable. 

Eames says, “Let’s talk to Saito tonight and see what he says.” Then he leans forward and says to their driver, “Hey, can you drop us on the corner here?” 

“What?” says Arthur, as the driver pulls the car over. “Why?” 

“Because it’s a lovely day,” Eames says, getting out of the car, “as you’ve already said, and a walk might do us good.” 

“Talking of all the fucking inexplicable things to happen today,” Arthur grumbles, “what the fuck, is Alec just going to make speeches about how much he loves you for the rest of this show? I mean, I don’t _care_ , except it’s painful from just a purely aesthetic point of view. They’re aesthetically displeasing speeches.” 

“At least the person who got eliminated didn’t seem all that upset about it,” Eames points out.

“First good thing to happen all day,” agrees Arthur. 

“Darling, this morning in the shower—”

“Fine, second,” Arthur amends. 

“It’s a good thing I have an ego with the resilience of flubber.” 

“Flubber?” echoes Arthur. 

“Fubber. Do we have to watch that movie, too?” 

“I just want to note that when we met you’d never seen _Casablanca_ ,” says Arthur. 

“Oh, look,” says Eames, “this path I’ve chosen has just happened to take us directly by your tailor’s. How very fortuitous.” 

Arthur shakes his head and pretends to think that Eames is ridiculous but he can feel the fact that his dimples are creasing into a smile. 

“Let’s go shopping,” Eames proposes, and nudges him into the shop. 

“You hate shopping,” protests Arthur. 

“I have my tablet and I’ve got a few designs for clients to work on. Don’t mind me. Pick out some new ties or something.” 

“If it isn’t my favorite customer!” says Giacomo as he comes out from the backroom. “I don’t have anything you’re waiting for, do I?”

“No,” Arthur says. “I’m obviously being snappish and Eames has prescribed shopping.” 

Eames is already getting himself comfortable in one of the waiting chairs. “You’re not snappish, you’re tense, buy some ties and take some processing time.” 

“While you’re here,” Giacomo says, “come and have a look at this gorgeous metallic knit. We were talking about it the other day and I said that I’ve only got one customer who could pull this off and I was hoping you might feel an itch for a new suit.” 

“No new suit,” Arthur says. “Just a couple of new ties. No new suit.” 

“Come and have a look,” Giacomo says, smiling.


	97. Chapter 97

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to give the challenge a winner. Oops! So I'll have to fold that in the next time we get back to the show.

Arthur resists the lure of the new suit, even though it’s a gorgeous thing he’s probably going to have dreams about. He knows that Giacomo can read him with the expertise of their long-term relationship and that Giacomo will set it aside for a future moment of weakness or, even more likely, for when Eames calls him looking for a good gift for Arthur. 

Arthur does buy himself a playful yet tasteful tie. He also buys a borderline hideous tie for Eames because that’s Eames’s style. 

Eames smiles and says, “Darling,” when presented with it and kisses the inside of Arthur’s wrist because Eames is a lunatic. 

Arthur pretends he doesn’t flush with pleasure and says, “Let’s go.” 

“Good day, Giacomo!” calls Eames, because he is always a million times more Jeeves-and-Wooster when he’s in Giacomo’s shop, for some reason. 

“ _Buona sera_!” responds Giacomo, because he repays the favor by becoming more Italian. 

“You didn’t need me to coddle me like that,” Arthur says when they’re back on the sidewalk, “but thank you.” 

“I wasn’t coddling you. I was making you happy, which makes me happy, so I was coddling myself. And you look better and calmer and like you’re in much more of a mood to have an open-minded discussion with Saito.” 

“Why do you want to have an open-minded discussion with Saito?” asks Arthur. “Do you want to do a second season?” 

“I don’t know,” Eames says noncommittally. “I didn’t, when I thought it was going to be like this season. Now? I don’t know. I’d like to hear what they have to offer, and I’d like to think about this seriously, together. Can we do that?” 

Eames seldom talks about things in direct, forthright manners like this, which means this is one of those rare things he really means and cares about. Arthur nods and says, “Yeah,” by which he means that, in the same way Eames will sit for an hour at the tailor’s, then he will do a second season if Eames wants it. 

“Hey,” says Eames, and tugs on his hand to stop his walking, to turn him to face him. “It doesn’t mean I want to do a second season. And it doesn’t mean I want to do one if we decide it doesn’t work for _us_. I just want to talk to Saito. And then you can make a color-coded spreadsheet and do some processing and we’ll talk through what we think. I don’t think we can make a decision quickly on this. If we kneejerk into no, I just feel like maybe I’ll wonder about it, afterward.” 

“Okay,” Arthur agrees. 

Eames’s eyes are searching. They’re very bright in the spring dusk, a pale gray-green that would be called something ridiculous like Mossy Slate if it was a paint color. “Is it?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. 

“Because I want you to—”

“Eames,” Arthur interrupts. “Have I ever done anything to make you think I wouldn’t bend over backward for our relationship?” 

“No,” Eames says suspiciously. “Which is why I don’t want you to—”

“Which is why I wouldn’t do anything here without deciding that _I_ want to, because I wouldn’t want creeping misery to turn into seething resentment to turn into something worse.” 

That seems to convince Eames. He nods after a second and says, “Okay,” and then they start walking again, hand-in-hand this time. “Paul’s stopping by quickly before we talk to Saito,” he says. “I’ve got to hand off some fabric samples. He’s flying out to deal with a client for me right now, but I’m going to have to go off to do some in-person consulting eventually.” 

“Right,” Arthur says, because Eames does this every so often. Arthur’s clientele tends to stay within easy driving distance, because it’s where Arthur’s expertise lies, but Eames takes clients all over the world, wherever suits his fancy. 

“The job is in the Virgin Islands,” Eames says, far too casually. “I thought you might want to come with me. We could make a holiday of it. It’ll be after the show’s wrapped, so we’ll have plenty of time.” 

Arthur thinks of romantic walks on the beach at sunset. He thinks of Eames plotting out the proper proposal scenario. He smiles and says, “Yeah. Okay. We’ll plan on it.” 

 

***

Paul is at their house when they get there, waiting in his car. He gets out of it when he sees them approaching. 

“Paul!” Eames greets him. “Why would you wait in your car instead of out in this glorious spring weather?” 

“Allergies,” says Paul, and sneezes to punctuate his point. 

“Ah,” says Eames, as he unlocks their door and deals with the alarm. “Well, come in, come in. Let me run and grab you the fabric samples.” 

“Can I get you something to drink?” Arthur asks Paul politely. 

Paul shakes his head. “He’s just grabbing me some fabric samples and then I’ll be off.” 

“I love that you think he has an organizational system that will make that a quick and easy task,” remarks Arthur indulgently. “So Virgin Islands, huh? There are worse places to have to take business trips to.” 

“The perk of working with Eames is that he can pick and choose, and he always picks and chooses good locales,” says Paul. 

Which is true. Eames is very particular about where he goes these days. In the early days they were separated much, much more often and it was trying on both of them. At one point when flight delays contrived for Eames to spend a scant six hours at home before flying off again, Eames told Saito he was cutting down on his active client list and Saito offered to figure out how to buy an airline if that would make things easier on them. They’d declined. 

Arthur says, as it occurs to him, “Oh, by the way, you’re off the hook with Julia, so don’t worry about feeling obligated to go on a blind date for us.” 

“I’m off the hook with her?” Paul echoes. 

“Yeah.” Arthur shrugs. “She decided she wasn’t interested.” 

“Why isn’t she interested?” Paul demands. 

Arthur is caught off-guard. “Did you want to go out with her?” Because that hadn’t been the vibe he’d been getting at all. 

“Well, not particularly, but yeah, now I want to go out with her, definitely. I am a catch, Arthur,” Paul says definitively. “I work with my _hands_. Did you tell her that?” 

“Um,” says Arthur. “No. Because I try to avoid conversations like that with—”

“Tell her I work with my hands. Have you talked me up? I don’t think you’ve talked me up enough.” 

“I—Well, no, I didn’t talk you up because I didn’t think you were interested—”

“I am definitely interested. Yes. I want to go out with Julia.” Paul nods firmly. 

“Okay,” Arthur agrees, bewildered. 

Eames shouts from somewhere down the hallway, “Darling, have you seen my fabric samples?” 

“Yes!” Arthur calls back. “I see them frequently all over the house!” 

Eames mutters something they can’t catch but which Arthur is sure is a swear. 

“Give me a second,” Arthur tells Paul. “I’ll help him.” 

Arthur finds Eames literally crawling through piles of fabric in his office. 

“You seem to have plenty of fabric samples here,” Arthur points out. 

“None of these are right,” Eames complains. 

“What did they look like?” Arthur asks patiently. 

“They’re all pale blue patterns. This is why computers are better. I can label things on a computer and put them—”

“They’re under your Willy Wonka hat,” Arthur says. 

“They’re what?” says Eames. 

“You put your Willy Wonka hat in our bedroom, and it’s on top of a bunch of pale blue fabric samples.” 

Eames looks amazed. “How do you know that?” 

“I’m magic,” deadpans Arthur and goes back to Paul in the kitchen. “He’ll be in in a second.” 

Paul says, “Now I’m worried I’m coming off creepy. Am I coming off creepy? I don’t want you to make me sound too…strong with her. Maybe Eames should talk me up.” 

Arthur is offended. “I am perfectly capable of talking you up. Look, I already basically run a match-making service, I just match people up with their dream houses and that’s basically the same as finding a soulmate, let me tell you. I can handle Julia.” 

“Well, so far whatever you’ve said has made her decide she doesn’t want to date me,” Paul points out indignantly. 

“Because I didn’t know—” Arthur begins to protest. 

“Here we are!” Eames bounds his way into the kitchen. “Arthur knew exactly where they were because Arthur is a wizard.”

“Eames,” Paul says, accepting the samples. “Say nice things about me to Julia.” 

“Oh,” Eames says, sounding confused. “But…I thought you weren’t interested—”

“He’s changed his mind,” says Arthur wryly. 

“I think Julia’s great,” Paul announces, and then departs. 

“Wow. Good job,” Eames comments. “What’d you say to turn him around on the Julia issue?” 

“I told him she didn’t want to go out with him,” Arthur says. 

“You’re a genius,” says Eames. “A wizard genius.” 

“That’s what my business cards say,” Arthur agrees.


	98. Chapter 98

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated thank you to pureimaginatrix, who originally raised the angle that Paul would be good with his hands!

They sit in their living room to Skype with Saito. Probably Arthur’s office would have been more professional, but what the hell, he works for them and so they shouldn’t need to impress him, it should be the other way around. 

Saito greets them with, “Hello. You’re both doing well,” as if daring them to disagree with this pronouncement. 

“Very well,” Eames agrees. 

“Reasonably well,” says Arthur, because he doesn’t want to overstate things and Alec _is_ still in their lives. 

“So,” says Saito, looking at them as if he is their principal and they are two misbehaving boys. And this is how Saito looks at them when their careers are booming. Arthur shudders to think how he will regard them once they fall out of fashion. “The network is very, very happy with this _Next Big Thing_ show you two have. I’ve watched it for you, of course, and it’s very interesting.” 

Saito says that everything they do is “interesting.” By this Arthur assumes he means “acceptable if you are small-minded enough to like that sort of thing.” Arthur assumes Saito’s preferred entertainment is live recitations of lyric poetry performed by the souls of those unwise enough to consume food proffered under Saito’s roof. 

Eames says cheerfully, “It’s a bit of a bloody train wreck.” 

“Oh, yes, undoubtedly,” Saito agrees gravely. “Which makes it all the more noteworthy how you two rise above it and manage to keep it coherent.” 

“So they want us back,” says Eames. 

“To be perfectly blunt,” says Saito, and levels a look at them, “everyone wants you two.” 

Arthur blinks and wonders if their Skype if malfunctioning. 

Eames says, “What?” 

“Well, when I got the call from the network, I must confess I found it very interesting. The show is successful, I knew that, and I could see that the two of you were the best things about it. But that did not surprise me. I would not have you as clients if you were not going to be the best things about everything you might undertake.” 

“Right,” Eames agrees solemnly, and Arthur wonders again at the circumstances under which Eames became Saito’s client. 

“I did not, however, realize the extent to which your reputations had grown. The network called and said they wanted another season, preferably a multi-season deal, and—and here I quote—‘What do they want for this?’ There isn’t even an offer on the table. They want to know what you want.” 

Arthur frowns. “I don’t like that. That’s negotiating in a vacuum.” 

“Exactly, Arthur,” Saito says, and Arthur tries not to feel like he’s just been told he made valedictorian of the class. 

“Teacher’s pet,” Eames mutters in his ear in amusement. 

Arthur shrugs him away and tries not to blush. 

Saito is still talking to them on Skype, ignoring Eames’s lapse of professionalism. Saito always ignores Eames’s lapses of professionalism. Arthur suspects he views Eames as an artist who can’t be expected to be rational all the time. “I also dislike negotiating in a vacuum,” Saito is saying, “so I took the liberty of calling around to other networks. I floated the idea that you two might want to jump ship. This call is me informing the two of you that, should you wish, I could host a bidding war for your services right now. Very seldom do I get to call clients and say this, so allow me a moment to savor it.” Saito straightens a little in his chair—even though he’s been sitting ramrod straight—and clears his throat and enunciates clearly, “I believe that this is your moment and the sky is the limit.” 

Arthur and Eames both say nothing. It’s not often Eames is shocked into speechlessness and Arthur feels like he should comment on that but mostly he’s trying to wrap his mind around what Saito just said.

“When you say the sky is the limit,” Eames says eventually, “you mean that in the conventional _good_ way?” 

“Very good,” Saito assures them, as solemn as if he’d just informed them of the death of a close relative. 

“But why would any other networks be interested in us?” Eames asks. Apparently he’s regained his reasoning faculties; Arthur is still flailing in the number of branches that just got added to his decision tree. “We’re _designers_. We do home stuff.” 

“And everyone owns a home. Other networks may not build their roster of entertainment around design shows, but they are not averse to a design show under the right circumstances.” Saito shrugs elegantly. 

Arthur says, “But I’m not even a designer. I’m a _salesman_.” He’s thoroughly bewildered. 

“Indeed you are,” says Saito, warm with approval. “And what you do is sell people on your show, on your opinions, on what you’re doing and saying and thinking. You have a reputation right now for literally making drying paint watchable. Your social media numbers are tremendous.”

“But that’s this ridiculous love triangle soap opera thing,” Arthur protests. “That isn’t _us_.”

“The what?” Saito sounds as perplexed as Arthur feels.

“You know, the whole thing with Eames and Alec and _you know_.” Arthur draws a line at talking to their agent about their sexual histories. 

“No, I don’t know. Do you want to work with Alec now, Eames?” 

“Oh, my God, no,” says Eames quickly. 

“Then I’m not sure of his relevance…?” Saito lifts an eyebrow at them. 

Arthur feels like he has given the wrong answer to every single question ever asked of him in his life, in the face of that look. He says desperately, “But you’ve been watching the show. There’s that whole craziness with how Eames used to date Alec and—”

“Oh, _that_?” If Arthur hadn’t been watching Saito the whole time, he would have assumed he must have just bitten into a lemon, given the look on his face. “What does that have to do with anything? Unless you two are breaking up. Because if you two are breaking up I’m not sure I can continue to represent both of you if there’s a conflict of interest—”

“We’re not breaking up,” Eames says, “Christ.” 

“I just mean that the show is a hit because of the Alec angle,” Arthur explains. Usually Saito is smarter than this, quicker on the uptake. 

Saito cocks his head and says slowly, “No, the show is a hit because of the two of you. That Alec thing is a side note at best. Who’s worrying about that? Who’s thinking about that?” 

Arthur is. Arthur is thinking of it every second, really. Even as much as he protests he isn’t. 

Saito says into his telling silence, “Arthur. I suspect that your perspective on the centrality of Alec to anything at all may be inevitably biased. Please trust me when I assure you that he is a non-entity in the perception of others when it comes to _Next Big Thing_ and its success.”

Arthur feels like his world has just been entirely and unceremoniously rocked. Could it possibly be true that most casual viewers of _Next Big Thing_ care about the design aspect and not the soap opera aspect? Has Arthur been so caught up in his own relationship that he failed to see that not everyone in the world would be willing to obsess about…some random, strange guy’s relationship woes? Of course Arthur is obsessing about it more; it’s _his_ relationship. How has it never occurred to him that other people noticed the triangle aspect but fail to give it the paramount importance it has in Arthur’s life _solely because he’s dating one prong of the triangle and is another prong_?

“The other networks think that, with a higher profile, you could be poised on the edge of superstardom,” Saito continues. “Eames’s design talent and Arthur’s talent for keeping a show on-focus and, of course, the chemistry of the two of you combined—they want in on the ground floor of you two, so to speak. As I say: The sky is the limit. I really do enjoy getting to say that and I get to say it so seldom.” 

Eames leans forward to be closer to the laptop screen. “Let me get this straight: You’re saying we can basically…do anything we want next?” 

“That is indeed what I’m saying. You merely need to decide what you want to do. But you should decide quickly. Obviously you’re negotiating from a position of great strength right now and that can change at any time. Show business, I do not need to tell you, is a perilous business.” 

“We need to think,” Arthur says quickly. “I need processing time. This is _insane_.” It’s almost too much choice. Eames made the decision about a second season seem manageable, seem like something Arthur could spreadsheet out. The enormity of YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? looms over Arthur like a tidal wave that’s about to break. 

“I understand,” Saito says, “but—”

“Saito, we’ll get back to you,” Eames says and closes the laptop and turns to Arthur. “Breathe, darling.” 

“Anything we want, Eames,” Arthur says. “How the fuck are we going to—”

“Spreadsheets,” Eames tells him. “Just bigger ones, and with more colors.”


	99. Chapter 99

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the pivot tables and conditional formatting line goes to Justbecause421. 
> 
> Credit for the relational database line goes to alltoseek.

Arthur closes himself up in his office and lets the soothing act of making a spreadsheet lull him a bit. He tries to whittle their breadth of choice down to more manageable this-or-that questions: Should they stick with their network or jump to a different one? Do they want to do a competitive show or a collaborative one? Do they want a series of special one-offs? Do they want to keep their day jobs? Do they want to do another show at all? 

Even structured as narrowly as he can make them, the choices are staggering. He tries to think of the last time in his life when he had so much sheer _choice_ , when there wasn’t some very practical consideration steering him in some direction. Because it’s not like there had been any choice when it came to dating Eames, he’d had no control over how hard he’d fallen. He supposes he’d had a choice when it came to starting the show in the first place but that in comparison had been so very simple: Do you want to make this extra paycheck for a few weeks’ worth of work, or don’t you? It’s not like he’d had to come up with the idea for the very show. 

“How’s it coming along?” Eames asks. 

Arthur realizes he’s standing behind him where he’s seated at the desk. He hadn’t even heard him come in. 

“I’ve developed pivot tables and a bunch of conditional formatting but I feel like I might need a relational database,” complains Arthur. 

“Relational database,” says Eames. “Of course.” 

“Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?” 

“No, but it sounds very sexy. Keep going, darling.” 

“It’s not sexy.” 

“Say it again.” 

“Relational database,” says Arthur obediently. 

“Hmm, yes, very sexy.” 

“You’re a sex-crazed lunatic,” Arthur sighs. 

“Yeah, but I’m _your_ sex-crazed lunatic,” Eames points out and kisses the top of his head, his hands resting on Arthur’s shoulders. 

“Lucky me,” says Arthur, but he lifts one of his hands up to circle around Eames’s wrist so Eames will know exactly how seriously he means it. 

“It’s the leprechaun in you,” Eames says. 

Arthur shifts in his chair so he can see Eames. “What are you thinking about all of this? Tell me.” Because he knows Eames is thinking something. Eames doesn’t need processing time. Eames makes immediate decisions. 

“I’m thinking…” Eames says, turning his hands so that they cup the back of Arthur’s head. “Time for dinner.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Eames, I’m serious.” 

“So am I. Come and see.” Eames walks out of the office without hesitation. 

Arthur sighs. Clearly, if he’s going to have a conversation with Eames, he has to follow Eames.

Arthur is going to ask what take-out Eames ordered except that when he enters their kitchen it…looks like a warzone. There are pots and pans _everywhere_ , and stains of an indeterminate nature are now all over their sleek marble countertops. And Eames had been hesitant on the marble, which Arthur had desperately wanted, because he’d said it stained easily. And now Eames has gone and covered it in stains. 

But what Eames has also done is produce what looks like actual edible food, on two plates on a space he’s cleared for them at their breakfast bar. 

“I couldn’t find a candle,” Eames says. “I was going to make it all lush and romantic for you because I know you like that stuff but is it possible we don’t own a single bloody candle?” 

“I was scared you’d forget you lit them and burn the place down,” Arthur replies dazedly, staring at the plates of food. It looks like…sausage, on a bed of potatoes, smothered in gravy. 

“Wise of you,” Eames allows. “Well, anyway, pretend the food is lush and romantic, hmm?” He pulls out Arthur’s chair for him. 

“What is this?” Arthur asks, staring at him. “Did you make this?” He must be misunderstanding what’s happening in this kitchen. 

But Eames says, “I did indeed. It’s a British delicacy. Sausages and mash. Come and try it.” Eames indicates the chair he’s holding. 

Arthur sits down slowly. “Where did you even get this food to cook?” 

“I went to this remarkable store that sold a number of food items like sausages and potatoes. Startling place. The size of an airplane hangar, filled to the brim with food.” 

Arthur gives him an unamused look. 

“When you’re lost in your spreadsheets, darling, you wouldn’t notice if I started giving tours of your office. So I ran out while you were in your office. I couldn’t just sit and twiddle my thumbs, and I thought you might like the gesture.”

Arthur _loves_ the gesture. And he doesn’t want to question Eames’s ability to cook this meal but Eames has not previously proven himself to be especially adept at making things that were edible. Arthur sneaks a glance at Eames, who is now carrying over wineglasses, and, hoping that he doesn’t look too obvious about it, he slices through the center of the sausage and presses a fingertip briefly to the middle of it. Warm. Better than warm: hot. 

“All cooked through,” Eames promises him, setting his wineglass in front of him. 

“You knew about bacteria this whole time,” Arthur accuses. 

“Yeah, but raw cake batter makes me forget everything about bacteria,” Eames explains gravely. 

Arthur rolls his eyes at him and experimentally tries the sausage. It’s…good. He says that. “Eames, this is good!” 

“Surprise,” says Eames. “I can cook.” Eames slides into his own chair. 

Arthur loads his fork with potatoes and tries those, too. There is nothing all that requiring of finesse about this meal, but it’s all much more cooking than either of them have done previously. “Eames, where’d you learn this?” Arthur asks. “Why didn’t you ever say? Were you worried I’d make you cook all the time?” 

“I fear you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Eames says. “I grew up in a pub. I picked things up here and there. I can make you every weirdly British, mostly unhealthy dish you can think of. I don’t know much beyond the basics.” 

“Better than me,” enthuses Arthur. “I didn’t realize you paid attention at the pub.” 

“I am my parents’ only child,” Eames remarks lightly. “Naturally they assumed the pub would be mine someday and that I ought to learn about it.” 

Arthur keeps eating steadily but he thinks about this. He knows the story of how Eames became a designer—falling in love with the room stylings in the glossy gossip magazines his mother used to read, deciding to come to America because it seemed like a lark, making connections with the right people. It’s a typical Eamesian story, full of madcap decision-making and a terrifying overreliance on his abundance of charm. Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever asked what Eames’s parents thought about the whole thing. They seem so blissfully accepting of their son now that Arthur supposes he assumed they always had been. But maybe that wasn’t the case. 

“What did your parents say when you told them you didn’t want it?” Arthur asks carefully. 

Eames swallows a sip of wine. “I’m not sure I ever really told them. I said I was going to give this decorating thing a try and they said, ‘Have fun, dear,’ and I think to this day they expect me to go back eventually.” 

“We could, you know,” Arthur hears himself say. 

Eames looks at him in surprise. “Move to England?” 

“I mean, not permanently. Not necessarily. I don’t know. I’d have to think more about that. But, I mean, if you were homesick, or if you felt like you needed to be there to handle things for a while, or something, I’d go with you.” Arthur shrugs so that it doesn’t sound as momentous as he knows it does. Arthur doesn’t do things rashly and now out of nowhere he’s announced that he’d switch continents for Eames. 

Eames says after a moment, “I’m very happy here. But it’s a lovely offer and thank you, I’ll keep it in mind.” 

“It’s just more choice, right?” Arthur says miserably. “It’s just more fucking choice. What the fuck, let’s call Saito and tell him we’re moving to England and taking over your parents’ pub. It’s just as likely an outcome as anything else.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses Arthur’s temple. “Finish your dinner. I picked up ice cream for dessert. And then you’re going to take your laptop with its relational database into the living room and we’re going to talk all this through.” 

“It isn’t a relational database,” Arthur corrects him. “It’s just a spreadsheet.” 

“Still dead sexy when you say it, though, darling,” says Eames, which is just ridiculous but Arthur lets him kiss him anyway.


	100. Chapter 100

Arthur insists that they clean the kitchen. Eames seems bewildered by that. 

“We can just leave it,” he says. 

“Until what? It spontaneously cleans itself? The woodland creatures come and wash the dishes for us? My magical leprechaun friends clean the countertops?” 

“I warned you marble stains easily,” says Eames mournfully. 

Arthur starts loading their dishwasher and setting pots and pans to soak. He cannot believe how many pots and pans Eames used. It’s like Eames had to try every single pot and pan they owned before finding ones he could settle on. Eames is like the Goldilocks of cooking. 

When Arthur is done cleaning the kitchen, Eames has scooped them out bowls of ice cream and has made a pot of tea. 

Arthur turns to him and tucks a finger into his belt loop and pulls him in, then slides his arms around him and presses his forehead against his shoulder and just hugs him. 

“Hello,” Eames says, and kisses the top of his head. 

“I love that you cooked for me and it was delicious and you’re wonderful but we don’t have to do that all the time.” 

Eames chuckles. “I did make a bit of a mess, didn’t I?” 

“A bit of one.” 

“Okay. Go and get your laptop and meet me on our couch.” 

Arthur retrieves his laptop and takes it back to the living room. Somehow Eames has already managed to inhale his ice cream and is now sprawled in his thinking pose half underneath the coffee table. Arthur sits on the couch with his laptop and says, “Okay. Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

“Tell me _you’re_ thinking,” counters Eames. “You already have so many more thoughts in that gorgeous head than I do.” 

“And you’ve already made up your mind what it is you want to do, so I wish you’d just _tell me_ ,” grumbles Arthur. 

Eames tips his head out from underneath the coffee table so he can see him. “No, I haven’t,” he says firmly. “I haven’t made up my mind. I don’t know what I want to do.”

“You have ideas,” Arthur says, because he _knows_ Eames. 

Eames says after a second, “I like being on television.” 

“Okay,” says Arthur, and taps into his spreadsheet. _Do we even want to do a show? Yes._

“I also like being a designer,” continues Eames. 

Arthur keeps tapping at his spreadsheet. _Do we want to keep our day jobs? Yes._

Eames lays a hand over Arthur’s hands on his keyboard and Arthur looks up at him in surprise. 

“This is me,” says Eames. “This is what I want. This is what I like. Just because I like being on television doesn’t mean you have to like being on television. Just because I want to keep being a designer doesn’t mean you have to keep being a real estate agent. This doesn’t have to be a decision where we both have to agree to do the same thing.” 

Arthur hears himself say, “Yes, it does,” before he can think about it, and suddenly Eames moves the laptop off his lap, pushing it onto the coffee table. 

Eames says firmly, “ _No_ ,” and then, “Okay, we need to talk about this. You agreed to do _Next Big Thing_ because I wanted to and you said we were a package deal. All of this—this entire debacle—is because I made you do something you wouldn’t have done otherwise.” 

“This hasn’t _entirely_ been a debacle,” Arthur protests. 

“And you know why _Next Big Thing_ was an option in the first place? Because you were bored doing _Love It or List It_ but I knew you wouldn’t leave as long as I wanted to do the show. We’ve been making decisions for a while now based on the idea that we have to do the same thing and I want to know: What do you want to do? You, independent of me?” 

“That’s not fair,” Arthur says sharply. “It’s not fair to act like there’s something wrong with me—”

Eames shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.” 

“Really? Because it’s what it sounds like,” Arthur retorts hotly. “Do you think I don’t have opinions about our future? I have plenty of opinions.” 

“Tell me, then,” Eames demands. “I want to hear them.” 

“I see us here, okay? Just like this. Just like we are. We’re happy. I don’t want us to be famous, necessarily, but I want us to have enough money that every crazy vision you have in your head gets to be made reality without us having to think twice about it. If you want an indoor forest, then you get a fucking indoor forest, okay? And your river hallways and your chocolate garden and whatever crazy thing you come up with next. And you don’t need to worry about your parents’ pub because we’ll find a way to help them and make sure they don’t have to worry. And we’ll take care of my mother, too. And I don’t know what I do for a living, I don’t know what either of us does for a living, but we’re happy with it, whatever it is, we’re happy enough that we make each other laugh every day, and we never get tired of each other, and you never stop calling me ‘darling’ and kissing me in stupid places. Do you see why I don’t know what we should do here? Because there’s a very real part of me that doesn’t fucking care as long as we stay _us_. And I don’t know which choice to make here to keep us _us_. I have no. Fucking. Clue. Okay?” 

Eames is staring at him, and Arthur realizes maybe he was shouting. 

“So those are my opinions,” he finishes awkwardly. 

“They’re good opinions,” says Eames, sounding strangled. 

“They’re useless opinions,” Arthur sulks. 

“Fucking hell, darling, they’re bloody spectacular opinions,” Eames says, pulling him off the couch and onto the floor. 

“Eames, we’re supposed to be—talking—about—our many choices,” Arthur tries to say around the onslaughts of Eames’s lips. 

“Uh-huh,” Eames agrees, mumbling into his skin. “I’ve made up my mind about what we should do.” Eames is pulling Arthur’s shirt up out of his pants. 

“Oh, good. What is it?” 

“Fuck,” says Eames succinctly. 

“That’s not—mmm—that’s not helpful.” 

“Yes, it is,” Eames gasps, unbuckling Arthur’s belt. “Very helpful. Good decision. What’s your spreadsheet say?” 

“Relational database,” Arthur says, biting Eames’s lush lower lip. 

Eames groans and says, “Brilliant.”


	101. Chapter 101

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is the true hundredth chapter because of the KtCR mistake SO MANY CHAPTERS AGO and OMG YOU GUYS HOW IS THIS THING 100 CHAPTERS???? Thank you for being so lovely and so willing to roll with how crazy and insane this story had gotten! And so inspiring! Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how great it is to read the things you say about this story and these characters and how you connect with them and how you identify with them and what you hope for them in the future. It makes me want to write you more and more and more. AS YOU SEE.

“I’m the best at decision making,” remarks Eames frankly, sounding very pleased with himself. 

“Hmm,” says Arthur. “You’re not bad.” 

“Prick,” Eames says fondly, and kisses him behind his ear. 

“So, Best Decision-Maker,” says Arthur, propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at the inelegant sprawl of Eames next to him. “Tell me what we should do, then.” 

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Eames replies. “It doesn’t matter what choice we make here, it won’t affect that future you’ve got in your head. You and me, we’ll be together whether we make fifty shows together or none at all. And we’ll take care of everyone we love and I’ll never stop calling you ‘darling’ and you’ll never stop insulting me to show me how much you love me.” 

“You say that like it’s so easy to promise that,” Arthur says. “Like it isn’t _enormous_.” 

Eames rolls so that he’s on his side, propped up on his elbow, too. “Look, this decision with Saito and networks and _Next Big Thing_ , that’s not the rest of our lives. It’s the next few years, at most. _This_ is the rest of our lives.” Eames gestures between the two of them. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, because he knows Eames is right. He wants to make the right decision—wants to sign to the right network, for the right show, or not to sign at all if that’s right instead—but Eames is also right that it’s not like the wrong decision here will destroy their lives. If they’ve made it through the debacle of Alec and _Next Big Thing_ , Arthur supposes they can make it through anything. 

Arthur flops onto his back and looks up at the ceiling and says, “I just wish I knew myself as well as you know yourself. I wish I felt like I knew what I wanted out of life. You want to know why the only thing I can point to is you, when you ask me what I want? Because you’re the only thing I’ve ever looked at and _known_ that I wanted. I wish I was like you and I could just…could just make decisions, could just _know things_.” Arthur feels like he’s whining and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Ignore me.” 

“Darling, you know lots of things. You’re actually unfailingly good at millions of things that you don’t even realize. You’ve got brilliant instincts. Your problem is you’re too clever by half. You get yourself locked in here—” Eames taps his finger lightly against Arthur’s head—“and you work yourself into a tizzy because you’re methodical and careful and want to be _sure_. You make wonderful decisions because you’re thorough about them, and I admire that. But that’s what all your processing time is: You wend your way through that forest of decision trees that lives in your head. It’s not the only way you make decisions, though. When you feel comfortable, when you relax, you know what you want. You’re very clear about it in those circumstances. I’ve seen it. So. You’re well-shagged now, hmm? Quiet that buzz in your brain and tell me. What do you want? Me. And what else? Tell me right now, first thing that comes into your head.” 

“I want to give people homes,” Arthur hears himself answer. Because that’s true. He’s always wanted that. It’s why he was ever attracted to real estate in the first place. 

“Right.” Eames smiles at him. “Yes. Good.” 

But Arthur isn’t paying attention to Eames. Arthur’s mind is racing along, as if he’s broken open the dam now and all of his thoughts are spilling out and abruptly _making perfect sense_. “I give them the house and you make it a home for them. That’s what I want.” It’s startlingly clear to Arthur all of a sudden. He and Eames, working in tandem, close enough to be together but with clear delineations of their purpose, so that Eames will always be there but not always right on top of him. Arthur sits up and says, breathless with the sureness of the realization, “That’s what I want.” 

“Okay,” Eames says. “So what does that mean? A television show about that?” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Or yes. I want it to be everything. I’ll find people houses, and you’ll decorate them. We can be a package deal. We’ll have a firm, you and me. Why haven’t we thought to do this before? This is what we should be doing. Isn’t it what we should be doing? Why did the network ever have us warring? We should be working together; we have complementary skill sets. We could do this. I know you like to take jobs outside of this geographic area, but I can expand. I’m good at what I do, and most of real estate is contacts, I could find the contacts, where we needed them, I could do it.” 

Eames is smiling at him. “I have no doubt you could.” 

“Is this what we should be doing?” Arthur asks anxiously. “Say something. Do you like it?” 

“I think it’s brilliant,” Eames says. “I think we should have thought of it long ago. Armes House Services.” 

“No, we’re not calling it Armes, I hate that, we’ll come up with something else.” 

“Baa House Services?” 

“We’ll name it later,” Arthur says, eager to move on to his next suddenly crystal-clear thought. “The point is: that would be the show. The show is us, and our clients, and this is what we do.” 

“And you won’t be bored?” Eames asks. “I know you were bored on _Love It or List It_ , and I don’t want you to be bored. It’s fine if you don’t want to do a show with me. I’m sure any number of shows would want a—”

“No, I want to do a show. I’m bored on _Love It or List It_ because of how contrived the set-up is for me: I can never hit it out of the park, I have to pretend to struggle a bit in order to keep up the competition between us. This would be me just getting to do my job, and I love my job. And I’m good at television, right? That’s what this whole thing has proven, that’s really turned out to be the point of this. I don’t think I am, because I never have time to think things through, to make careful decisions, I feel like I’m constantly on-the-fly, but that’s why I’m so good at it. That’s what you’re saying, that you’ve seen me make good decisions without the torture beforehand, because I do it on the show, don’t I? I’m just really _good_ at television. Aren’t I?”

Eames is full-fledged grinning at him. “Darling, you’re brilliant at it. You have always made both of our shows. I’ve been waiting for you to see that.” 

“I was whistling,” Arthur says in amazement. 

“What?” says Eames. 

“I was so happy I was _whistling_. Because I had you and I had my real estate agent job and I also had this show where I got to work with you instead of against you and we both just got to be amazing and help people and I was _whistling_ , Eames. That’s what I want. This is what I want. Do you think anybody else will want this?” 

“I think we’ll bring it to Saito and we’ll ask.” 

“And it’s good, we wouldn’t feel the time constraints as much, it would all be integrated together, we wouldn’t be pulled in a million different directions, the directions would all point the same way. Right? I think this could work. It’ll work. Right?” 

“If it doesn’t work, we’ll do something else. We will. Together.”

Arthur leans forward and gives Eames a swift kiss. “You make me better. You know that, right? You really push me to be better. You don’t let me get lost in my head, you pull me out, and I love you so much for that, thank you.” 

“It is my absolute pleasure, darling, trust me. And it works both ways.” 

“Let’s Skype Saito,” says Arthur. “I think we should Skype him right now. What do you think?” 

“I think you’d kill me if I let you Skype Saito with an unbuttoned shirt, an askew tie, and sex hair.” 

“Oh,” says Arthur, scrambling to his feet. “I forgot we just had sex.” 

“And I’m going to choose to interpret that remark as favorably as I can.” 

“Absolutely,” Arthur says absently, leaning over to kiss Eames. “The sex was earth-shattering. Fantastic orgasm. Eleven out of ten. You’re a tiger in bed.” 

“Stop it,” Eames laughs against his lips.

Arthur sobers and frames Eames’s face and says, “I’m crazy about you. And the sex was spectacular and you know it so stop fishing for compliments.” 

Eames chuckles. “I love you, too.”

“Baa,” says Arthur, and kisses the tip of Eames’s nose. “Now come and make yourself presentable so we can Skype Saito.”


	102. Chapter 102

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to scribblscrabbl, whose Tumblr post about "OTP" (http://scribblscrabbl.tumblr.com/post/115026361829/so-i-subscribe-to-this-daily-newsletter-theskimm#notes) inspired that slice of conversation here.

“So,” says Arthur, coming out of the bathroom and looking at Eames where he’s sitting up in bed working on his tablet. “Not that I’m, you know, overthinking this.” 

“Of course not, darling,” Eames replies, glancing at him. “You would never do that.” 

Arthur crawls into bed next to him. “Is our whole idea crazy?” 

“Our whole idea is brilliant.” 

“Why would a network want a show that’s just, like, you and me being us?” 

“You heard Saito: Why _wouldn’t_ they? They want us, they want our chemistry, and what we’re proposing is just a design show at heart. It’ll actually be more of a bloody design show than the soap opera we’re working on now.” 

Arthur snorts. “Yes, a reality show about our lives will actually be less invasive than this show has been.” 

“And I for one am looking forward to it,” Eames says, and puts the tablet aside. 

Arthur watches him turn off the light and slide down into the bed next to him and tries not to fret. There’s nothing to worry about. 

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Eames says. “If none of the networks are interested in our proposal, we’ll still do Willy Wonka House Services, just not on television.”

“We’re not calling it Willy Wonka. Aside from the fact that it’s probably infringing someone else’s trademark.” 

“Pure Imagination?” 

“I’d prefer to avoid references to creepy men with iffy health and safety practices and a bunch of off-planet questionably paid labor.” 

“You always choose to see the worst of Willy Wonka instead of his charming best,” says Eames mournfully. 

“Help. Murder. Police,” says Arthur. 

“We’re good at what we do. We’ve got years’ worth of good publicity. Free advertising. Actually, advertising we got paid for, which is even better. We’ve got a strong social media presence and we’ll be a success.” 

“If we don’t get a show out of this, do you think Saito will kill us?”

“Well,” says Eames gravely. “I’m not saying he’ll _kill_ us, but I will say that I’ve never heard of Saito having any former clients.” 

“He’s like the agent version of Hotel California.” 

“‘One does not simply terminate our agency relationship,’” says Eames, in a passable imitation of Saito. 

“If he was going to kill us, how would he do it?” muses Arthur. 

“I think he’d serve us that poisonous fish,” Eames says. “Make it seem like an accident.” 

“Would you ever agree to have dinner with him?” asks Arthur. 

“Fair point. I think he’d send us the fish in the mail.” 

“He’d send us a fish?” 

“And we’d think it was just an innocent goldfish but actually it would be a death fish.” 

“Do you think death fish look a lot like goldfish?” 

“Of course,” Eames says. “It’s _evolution_. They protect themselves by looking innocent and then, bam! They strike.” 

“So we’d get a killer goldfish in the mail, is what you think would happen.”

“Exactly.” Eames sounds pleased with his imagination. 

“You’re such a fucking lunatic,” sighs Arthur fondly. 

“Anyway, Saito didn’t seem like he thought he’d have to kill us. So I think our proposal has some merit.” 

They’re silent for a second, but Arthur is still too restless to fall asleep. He admits, “I feel a little bit bad about Alec and Mal.” 

“You shouldn’t,” Eames mumbles, sounding half-asleep. 

“I know I shouldn’t. But I do. Alec was so excited about the second season idea—”

“Darling, we’re probably going to have an argument about how I don’t have the right to forbid you to do anything, but I would definitely forbid you from doing another season with Alec. Sometimes in life you’ve got to be a bit selfish. So we were never doing a second season, not because we want to screw either of them over, but because we want to do something else instead. That’s valid. YOLO, as they say online.” 

“Oh, do they say that in fanfiction?” drawls Arthur. 

Eames laughs. “No, in fanfiction they say ‘OTP.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“One True Pairing. That’s what we are. OTP.” 

“OTP House Services,” Arthur remarks, after a second. 

Eames, after another second, says, “Well. I feel like we’re getting somewhere with that.”


	103. Chapter 103

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think dracoxlovesxharry was the one who suggested they go a Property Brothers route on their new show. Although thank you to all of your suggestions because I couldn't decide and I do see this as being kind of Property Brothers slash Fixer-Upper but also more documentary-ish in that it wouldn't be one episode per house but more like a real-time thing.

Arthur spends the next day trying to focus on his real life. As opposed to his television life. Which is also, weirdly, his real life. He meets with one of his new clients from the open house episode and is given a typically ridiculous list of “must-haves.” He takes another client on a couple of showings, but he can tell neither of the houses are right so he doesn’t push it. 

On his way back he calls Eames, who picks up with, “Hello, darling, did you sell any houses?” 

“No,” Arthur says. 

“Damn,” says Eames. “How are we to afford to eat?” 

“Speaking of, are you planning on making some more British pub food tonight, or should I stop and get us something to eat?” 

“I think we should go out,” says Eames. 

“Fine,” agrees Arthur. “Do you want me to meet you somewhere?” 

“Come home first,” Eames replies. 

“Okay,” says Arthur, and goes home first. 

He finds Eames in the living room, surrounded by the detritus of designing. Eames does so much of his designing on his tablet that Arthur is constantly amazed by how much paper and fabric and randomness he still manages to generate. 

“Hi,” Arthur says. “Ready to eat?” 

“In a bit,” Eames replies, making a note to himself on his tablet. “Have you checked your e-mail?” 

“Not since I left the last house. Why?” Arthur fishes for his phone. 

“Sebastian Stan is still asking about his sex club membership,” says Eames. 

“I don’t know Sebastian Stan,” Arthur reminds Eames, looking at his e-mail. “Saito wants to Skype,” he realizes. 

“Saito wants to Skype,” Eames confirms, propping his tablet up and patting the floor next to where he’s sitting, propped up against the couch. 

“That makes me wish I did know Sebastian Stan,” says Arthur. “I’d rather deal with an e-mail about a fictional sex club.” 

“Relax,” Eames says, with a smile. “I’m sure it’s good news. We didn’t have any poison goldfish deliveries today.” Eames tugs Arthur down to the floor next to him. 

“Did we have any other type of fish deliveries today?” asks Arthur. 

“No. And that reminds me: We should have more fish deliveries.” 

“That’s not really a thing that happens,” Arthur points out. 

“We should make it a thing,” suggests Eames. 

“No, we shouldn’t. We really, really shouldn’t.” 

“We should also eat more fish,” says Eames. 

“I am very particular about the seafood I eat,” says Arthur. 

“Ah, yes, bacteria. Well, we’d avoid any poison fish.” 

“How reassuring,” says Arthur. 

“Is that your new tie?” asks Eames, running his fingers up it. 

“Yes. Do you like it?” 

“Looks lovely.” Eames ducks to kiss underneath his jaw. 

“Why are you trying to distract me?” 

“Because you like to be distracted, darling. Most of the reason you date me, you know, is because of how incredibly good I am at distracting you.” 

Weirdly, Arthur thinks that’s actually true. “Okay,” he agrees, because he can’t _not_ agree. “But let’s call Saito and get this over with.”

“And then we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate.” 

“Christ, you are such a fucking jinx,” Arthur tells him. 

Eames shrugs and leans forward to set up the Skype. “Whatever Saito has to say doesn’t change anything about our future plans, really. Speaking of: Sebastian Stan House Services.” 

“That violates Sebastian Stan’s publicity rights,” says Arthur. 

Eames looks delighted. “Did you already look into the possibility of that name?” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “No, I just _know_ things, Eames.” 

“Sex Club House Services,” suggests Eames, just as Saito answers their Skype. 

“I would counsel against that name,” says Saito seriously, “although the sex club rumors have unexpectedly increased your reputation a great deal. Well done. I have noted for my file the unanticipated effectiveness of such a strategy.” 

“It wasn’t a—” starts Arthur. 

“Thank you,” says Eames heartily. “Sometimes Arthur and I have such brilliant ideas. Which is such a nice segue, don’t you think, into—”

“Yes,” says Saito drily. “I will not leave you in suspense. Let us dispense with pleasantries, shall we?” 

Arthur feels like an uncultured oaf and wonders if he should ask how Saito’s doing. 

Eames just says, “Excellent. What do people think?” 

“There’s interest. There are details to be ironed out, of course, but you’ve got a couple of networks in play for bidding. If this were a simple monetary issue, then this would be an uncomplicated negotiation. But there are, of course, other variables that are important to the two of you. I suggest you make a list of what you value most in terms of creative control, time commitment, filming obligations, promotional efforts, et cetera.” 

“A list!” exclaims Eames. “That’s Arthur’s speciality. See how British I am?” Eames asks Arthur. “Did you hear that?” 

“Yes,” says Arthur absently, leaning toward Saito. “So we could do this, is what you’re saying?” 

“I think as long as you are reasonable in your demands, you’ll get someone who will agree to them. And I have noticed _you_ are generally reasonable. And that you have the means to persuade Eames to be reasonable as well.” 

“Most of the means are X-rated,” contributes Eames helpfully. 

“I assumed,” says Saito, while Arthur contemplates his likelihood of succeeding in smothering Eames with one of the couch’s throw pillows. Probably not great; Eames is strong. 

“You should make a list,” Saito continues, “but of course there’s another issue we haven’t yet discussed, and that’s your current obligations to your network. I deliberately floated your proposal to other networks to increase our bargaining position with them. You can turn down a second season of _Next Big Thing_ easily, but you do remain under contract with them for another ten-episode season of _Love It or List It_. The question remains whether you wish to finish that out, which I think can be built into whatever deal you might strike with another network, or whether you wish to try to renegotiate the contract using your new leverage.” 

“We can’t just get out of the contract?” asks Eames. 

“No, Mr. Eames. That is what makes it a _contract_ ,” replies Saito. 

“Right. Of course,” says Eames faintly, sounding chagrined at having been chastised. “But, I don’t know, I thought people got out of contracts all the time.” 

“People in fiction, Mr. Eames. Not people in real life. Arthur, perhaps you would care to enlighten Mr. Eames as to how many of your clients have walked away from contracts without repercussions?” 

“Not many,” confirms Arthur, “but I was thinking we’d have some kind of changed circumstances argument based on the _Next Big Thing_ thing. Is there anything in there about increased obligations to the network or anything like that?” 

“We could attempt to make that argument. In the meantime, I think what we should do is approach the network’s parent corporation. I think we make clear to them that the show we are proposing, to capitalize on your newfound fame, would be much a better-fit for one of their larger, more-high-profile properties; that you would be wasted on another season of _Next Big Thing_ ; that you are a much better return for them somewhere else. You haven’t been mistreated by this corporation, I don’t see any reason not to let them in on the bidding, and you might even get them to let you out of the _Love It or List It_ contract, as Mr. Eames desires.” 

“And what if they don’t go for it?” Arthur asks. 

“Then I think you need to finish up _Love It or List It_. It’s only ten more episodes and they are hardly that time-consuming.” 

They’re time-consuming enough, Arthur thinks, but if there’s an expiration date—and at the end of that expiration date is a firm and a show over which he and Eames have actual control—he thinks he can deal with it. 

He looks at Eames. “What do you think?” 

“I think it works for me,” Eames says. 

Arthur nods and turns back to Saito. “Yeah. You can go to the network.” 

“Before I do, I just want to make crystal-clear: You’re rejecting their _Next Big Thing_ deal and countering with this proposal of your own. Correct?” 

Arthur watches himself in the Skype window nod in tandem with Eames. 

“Excellent,” says Saito. “I’ll be in touch. Good evening.” 

Eames ends the call and says, “‘Good evening.’ Who says that? ‘Good evening.’ It’s like he’s Count Dracula.” Eames looks at Arthur and says, “What do you think?”

Arthur considers the question seriously. But he has no nerves fluttering inside of him. He thinks Saito has this entirely in hand; he thinks the end result will be something that not just can live with but that he really wants. 

He grins and says, “Saito gave me homework to make a list. I’m all over that.” 

“I knew you would be,” says Eames. “Can we have dinner before you abandon me to the warm pixels of your laptop?” 

“You’re going to want seafood, aren’t you?” 

“I’m craving fish,” says Eames.


	104. Chapter 104

Arthur ends up e-mailing Saito that night to ask if there’s any way he can look at some of the things Saito’s other clients have negotiated for. Because the truth is Arthur has a good idea of what he thinks he wants in their show but he’s not sure how to phrase any of it. And he doesn’t want to phrase it clumsily and come across as a greedy asshole. Saito will fix it for him, he knows, but Saito displayed a lot of confidence in his reasonableness and Arthur has this weird desire to continue to make Saito proud of him. 

Arthur doesn’t try to analyze his relationship with Saito and the fact that he never had a father. He just e-mails Saito. 

Saito sends him lists of demands stripped of identifying information. Some of them are ridiculous—Arthur couldn’t give less of a fuck what kind of figs catering provides, because Arthur didn’t even know there were different kind of figs—but a lot of them are helpful. Arthur thinks he cares most about having some semblance of control: over the format, over the content, over what gets shown and what doesn’t. In both of his current shows, he has zero control and he’s constantly been surprised by the bits that have been shown to the public. He doesn’t want to be a control freak about it but he thinks there should be clear-cut filming guidelines, and personal lines that can’t be crossed. 

Like: the private rooms of their house never appear on camera. He’d never let a film crew in there anyway, but that’s the kind of thing he’s worried about. He also adds in a provision he and Eames have to approve the clients whose stories are filmed. He and Eames donate services at times to those in need and he doesn’t want that publicized in some sort of exploitative way. 

At the same time, he doesn’t want the filming obligations to be all that different than what his real-life commitments to his job are. He’s seeking with this to try to streamline their commitments, so that in the end they’re doing everything they want while having more time for each other. He’s not sure he can do it but surely having one client list in his life will help cut down on the pressure. 

And if the filming obligations are just part of their everyday lives, Arthur feels he can be a lot more flexible with how long the season is, which gives them a lot more options as far as network placement. 

Arthur wanders into the living room with his list and finds Eames Skyping with Paul in the Virgin Islands. Eames is frowning and saying, “No, no, I don’t think I like that one, we’ll have to go with the damask.” Eames catches sight of him and says, “Hello, darling. Arthur is here,” he tells Paul. 

“Hi, Arthur,” Paul calls from the tablet. 

“Hi, Paul,” Arthur says. “I didn’t know you were busy. Come talk to me when—”

“No, we’re done. Paul is eager to run and have a pina colada on the beach.” 

“I am working very hard,” Paul says. 

“You are brown as a nut,” Eames replies. 

“The sun is strong here. I got that walking from the airport to a cab.” 

“Good-bye, Paul,” Eames says, smiling, ending the call, and then looks at Arthur. “What’s up?” 

“I’ve been making our list, for Saito, and it’s just occurred to me: We’re going to need to talk to Paul.” 

“About what?” 

“The show. I mean, whether or not he’s going to be on it. If the show is about our professional lives, he’s part of our professional lives.” 

“Good point. I didn’t think of that. I mean, I suppose we can work around it if he doesn’t want to be on film.”

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees, settling himself on the couch next to Eames. “But we should still talk to him.”

“Let’s wait until this process is a little further on, so we know what we’re even talking to him about.”

“We’re going to need to get office space, too. I don’t want the cameras even in our living room.” 

“I thought we’d use the public rooms,” Eames says. “I can rework them. Let me see this list.” 

Arthur hands it over and explains, “I’m trying to give us as much control over it as I can, while still being reasonable.” 

“It looks good,” says Eames. “Agreeing on filming hours can be difficult, because our jobs can be 24/7 sometimes.”

“I know. I’m trying to keep it as flexible as I can there. If we overfilm on the busy days, I want it matched by underfilming on the slow days.” 

“Makes sense. I have a request.” 

“Sure,” says Arthur. 

“No product placement,” Eames says. “Not for my designs, at least. I won’t compromise them by pimping myself out to the highest bidder.” 

Arthur scrawls it in. 

“Also,” Eames continues, “you have to wear your glasses at least once an episode.” 

“No,” Arthur says. 

“And you need to climb up on things. Or at least bend down.” 

“No.” 

“You have to dress as a different AU every episode.”

“No.” 

“You are making this show exceedingly dull. No one will ever want to watch it.” 

“How about we require you to be shirtless once an episode?” suggests Arthur, to turn it back on him. 

Eames shrugs. “Okay.” 

“See, you’re such an exhibitionist,” Arthur laughs. 

“Darling, when you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Eames leers at him. 

“Such a conceited exhibitionist,” Arthur says, shaking his head. 

“Actually, I require that they allow me to be shirtless once an episode. And once an episode someone needs to say, ‘Eames, you magnificent specimen of manhood.’”

“Every episode you can tell us the story behind another tattoo.” 

“‘This is the tattoo I got when I was so drunk that I can’t actually remember what it’s supposed to be but Arthur says it looks like a chipmunk doing the hula.’”

“‘And this is the one I got to prove how anti-establishment I am,’” continues Arthur, grinning. 

“Are you implying I’m not anti-establishment?” 

“No, you’re an obviously huge rebel, Viscount Eames.” 

“By saying I’m an obviously huge rebel, do you mean that I have a really big penis?” 

“No. That is not what I mean at all.” 

“Pity. Can we add that to the contract, though? Just, you know: Acknowledged: Eames has a huge penis.” 

“No,” Arthur says. 

“Killjoy,” Eames says. 

“I never let you have any fun,” Arthur agrees.


	105. Chapter 105

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to chocolamousse who originally reminded me of the point that sleeping with Alec is evidence that Eames sometimes makes very questionable decisions.

“So,” says Arthur, as the car drives them to the judging location. It’s farther than usual, because the show has actually given all of the contestants a slice of bona fide outside to decorate. “Do you think Alec and Mal will know? That we’re not doing a second season?” 

“I guess it depends on if the network told them,” Eames replies. “And I guess that depends on how seriously the network’s taking our proposal. Saito said we would know more once they got back to us.” 

“Well, of course we’re going to know more once they get back to us,” Arthur says peevishly. “That would be the purpose of getting back to us: to give us more information.” 

“Hmm,” remarks Eames. “Tense, darling?” 

“I just don’t know what they’re going to say,” admits Arthur. 

“Alec and Mal? Who gives a fuck, right?” 

“I do to the extent that it might turn him into a total loose cannon, and the sex club rumors have just started to die down.” 

“The sex club rumors will never fully die down. You should just give in and start a sex club.” 

“Happy Ending House Services,” Arthur says. “Buying, selling, decorating, sex.” 

“You need a gerund,” Eames says. “Need to keep it parallel.” 

“I’ll leave the sex club marketing up to you, how’s that?” 

“Brilliant. I’m going to be brilliant at sex club marketing.” 

“Your plan is to scrawl on some bathroom stall walls ‘Call Eames for a good time,’ isn’t it?” 

“Hey, that used to work well for me,” Eames responds jovially. 

“I would blame all of this on your misspent youth, but you were an adult when you slept with Alec,” remarks Arthur. 

“My decision-making ability is questionable.” 

“And I’m going into business with you. Fantastic.” 

“My decision-making ability is questionable when sex is involved.” 

“And again I say: _I’m_ going into business with you.” 

“Yeah, sex does tend to be involved with you, doesn’t it? I’m telling you, darling, it’s your feral sexuality. And your sex club.” 

“Can we get back to the topic of Alec and Mal?” 

“No. I’ve been doing a good job of distracting you from the topic of Alec and Mal.” 

“I just don’t want to make things worse. Let’s just make sure we talk in the positive: We wanted to do something new, we wanted to explore this option, et cetera. I don’t want it to be, ‘We never wanted to work with you ever again in our lives.’”

“Positive, not negative,” says Eames, nodding. “Got it.”

“But we only bring it up if they bring it up first,” Arthur says. 

The car draws to a halt in a high school parking lot. The fields behind the school have been taken over by the remaining contestants and the camera crew. Arthur thinks they were fortunate to have a decent day. It’s breezy and cool but bearable, and it’s given him the perfect excuse to wear his navy Chesterfield with the velvet collar. 

They are barely out of their car before Alec is shouting, “Eames! Arthur!” from across the field.

“Why is he always so excited to see us?” Arthur mutters. “Does he get that much pleasure from provoking us?” 

“Positive, not negative,” says Eames cheekily, brushing a kiss over Arthur’s dimple-less cheek as he moves across the field toward Alec. 

“Don’t cheat!” Alec shouts, gesturing to the “rooms” set up all around them. 

Arthur sends him a grim little thumbs-up sign. “He’s telling us not to cheat by looking at one of these rooms before filming starts, and he’s fucking one of the contestants.” 

“Delicious irony,” says Eames. “Is that irony? I’ve never understood what irony is. It’s why I dropped out of school: couldn’t understand irony.” 

“You didn’t drop out of school.” 

“So you’re the one who keeps editing my Wikipedia entry to make me sound boring and un-edgy,” Eames accuses good-naturedly. 

“Un-edgy is smooth, and you are definitely not smooth,” rejoins Arthur wryly, ducking his head against the breeze. “How is his hat staying on? Is that literally glued to his head?”

Alec is smiling very widely at them as they approach, which is why it’s such a shock to reach him and have him spit out, “The network’s called off negotiations.” 

“Oh?” asks Eames innocently. “Is there some sort of hostage situation?” 

“Shut up,” Alec snaps, still with his weird incongruous smile in place. “You know what I’m talking about, because you’re the reason negotiations have been called off.” 

“Surely you exaggerate my importance,” says Eames. 

“Your…s importance. You plural. Both of your importance. You know what I mean!” Alec turns his wide frigid smile onto Arthur. He looks like some sort of macabre Halloween decoration, honestly. _Smiling Corpse_ , Arthur thinks. _With Hat_. “I blame you for all of this.” 

“Not appropriate,” Eames says, with that sharpness to his voice that he gets sometimes and that marks him as pretty damn edgy. He takes a step closer to Arthur as if he’s his bodyguard. 

“No, he’s been doing his level best to destroy all of our potential from the beginning,” says Alec, waving a hand between him and Eames. 

“Our potential?” Eames echoes. “You can’t possibly be delusional enough to think—”

“Point one, you left me for him the first time. Point two, you’re leaving me for him again.” 

Eames says, “I’m actually _with him_. You’re aware of that, right?” 

“And I’m right here,” Arthur points out, stepping out from behind Eames’s half-blocking stance. “Look, this doesn’t have anything to do with you.” 

“‘Eames and Arthur have placed another offer on the table for an independent show,’” says Alec. “That’s what I was told. Is that not true?” 

“Yes, it’s true—” says Arthur. 

“And this new show isn’t with me?” Alec clarifies. 

“No, it’s not with you—” says Arthur. 

“Then it does have to do with me, doesn’t it?” Alec demands. 

“We do have things in our lives that aren’t you,” says Eames, sounding exasperated. “Not everything is about you—”

“So,” Mal says, coming up to them. She looks windblown and rosy-cheeked. It’s a good look for her. Arthur can see why Cobb lost his head over her. “Jumping ship, boys?” She asks it cheerfully, without a trace of Alec’s resentment. 

“Probably,” Arthur says. 

“Definitely,” Eames says. 

“Join the club,” Mal says, and grins ear-to-ear. “I just signed to do a reality show with MTV. _Way_ more money.” 

“You’re leaving, too?” Alec asks. He's finally dropped the creepy fake smile in order to gape at Mal. 

“No time like the present, Alec,” Mal informs him, and pats his cheek. “Got to strike while the iron is hot. Isn’t that how the idiom goes? Now. Hurry up and get into makeup, you two.”


	106. Chapter 106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All: I have a very important announcement to make. And that is that somehow we have reached Easter weekend (for me; and the beginning of Passover for others!) and that means I am going home for the weekend and that means that the pace of this will once again slow while I am home. 
> 
> In other news: HOW IS IT EASTER NOW AND I AM STILL WRITING THIS???? 
> 
> My next planned trip is at the end of April. WILL I STILL BE WRITING THIS STORY??? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT. 
> 
> If I don't see you until Monday, I hope you have fabulous weekends and lovely holidays if you're celebrating.

Julia is not in the best mood. “This lighting,” she complains. “It’s godawful, with the clouds and the sun and then the clouds again and then the sun again. And don’t even get me started on the wind.” As she talks, she pushes a strand of her hair out of her face. “How the fuck is Alec keeping his hat on? I mean, what the fuck, am I right?” 

“You’re right,” Arthur agrees, as she gets to work on him. 

“Anyway. Sorry for all the complaining. Hello. How are you? This is a nice coat.” 

“Thanks,” Arthur says. “So I promised Paul I would put in a good word for him.” 

“No, _I_ promised Paul _I_ would put in a good word for him,” Eames jumps in. 

“We both promised him,” Arthur says. 

“But he thought my good word would be more effective,” Eames says. 

“Fine,” Arthur says, exasperated. “What’s your good word?” 

Eames thinks. “He’s really good at the laws of physics.” 

Julia lifts her eyebrows at Eames. “Is that a euphemism for something?” 

“Sure?” suggests Eames. “Something good, probably?” 

Arthur sighs and says, “He’s good with his hands.” 

“Oh,” says Eames. “Well done. That _is_ a euphemism.” 

“I know,” Arthur says. 

Julia says, “Wait a second, why’s this guy so desperate to go out with me all of a sudden? What’d you tell him about me? Did you see my online dating profile? Because I lied about my flexibility on there. I hope you didn’t tell him—”

“No,” says Arthur, wincing and wondering how he gets himself into these conversations. “We didn’t see your online dating profile.” 

“But now I want to,” Eames says, pulling out his phone. “What site is it on?” 

“Never mind,” Julia says. “So what’s the deal with this guy? He loves blind dates? That seems weird, right?” 

“He’s not weird,” Arthur says. “He’s really nice. I like him. And he puts up with Eames.” 

“Are you implying I’m high-maintenance like Eames?” Julia asks playfully. 

“No, no one is as high-maintenance as Eames,” Arthur says. 

“Says the man with a million products all over our bathroom,” says Eames, as he taps away at his phone. 

“It’s called a skincare regimen,” Arthur says primly.

“He’s a leprechaun,” Julia points out. “He’s got to have a good cover for why he never ages.” 

“Good point. _Julia_ ,” says Eames, with reverent glee. “What is this _picture_ of you?” 

“Oh, Christ,” Julia says, blushing. “Did you literally just sign up for that site so you could look at my profile?” 

“How _old_ are you in this picture? Sixteen?” 

“I was in college,” Julia answers indignantly. “And everyone knows guys only want to meet 22-year-olds online, because guys are assholes.” 

“I can’t argue with that,” says Eames sadly. 

“Paul is not an asshole. Paul is a good guy,” Arthur says. “I mean, from what I know of him.” 

“Paul is a good guy,” Eames confirms. “Julia, what are these _hobbies_? ‘Rooting for who I’m told to during the latest football game’?”

“Studies show guys don’t like to see hobbies that a woman can enjoy independently. Like, reading, or exercising, or anything like that.” 

“Julia, why would you _want_ to date any of these men?” Arthur asks. 

“Well, we can’t all have the man of our dreams just fall in our lap, can we?” Julia asks.

“There’s Paul,” Arthur says firmly, convinced that Paul is definitely miles better than whoever these nameless online men seem to be. “Take down that profile and go on a date with Paul.” 

“There is no bloody way you won some competition called ‘Miss Southern Bacon,’” says Eames. 

“In fact I did,” Julia informs him. “That’s basically the only true thing on that profile.” 

“What even _is_ that competition? Julia, you are amazing. Paul is going to love you,” announces Eames firmly. 

“Fine,” says Julia, smiling. “Give him my number. But don’t mention Miss Southern Bacon. It gives guys the wrong idea.”


	107. Chapter 107

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The triumphant return! :-)

They are taken to Gon’s outdoor living room first, Yusuf warning them the whole time that, because of the wind, they really have to be sure to speak into the microphones on their lapels. 

Gon announces that his theme is “man cave, only outside.” 

Yusuf shouts, “Into your microphone!” 

Gon obediently shouts into his microphone, “Man cave! Only outside!” 

The overwhelming design element is circles in a way that feels very welcoming and inviting, inclusive, beckoning you in. There is a circular grill at the center of a patio done in circular stones that are laid in interlocking circular patterns of dark and light gray. Radiating out from the circular grill are several circular nooks delineated by planters of different flowers. One of the nooks has a television built into a protective box; another contains two refrigerators, one filled with beer and one with wine, with a well-stocked bar tucked into the corner; another is composed of a tight cluster of cozy loveseats. 

“This one’s for bromancing,” Gon explains. 

“A term we’re going to borrow for the sex club, darling,” Eames tells Arthur. 

“We’ll use it in the marketing,” Arthur agrees absently. 

“Into your microphones!” Yusuf shouts. 

“You weren’t meant to hear that one, Yusuf,” mutters Eames, but sends Yusuf a cheerful salute. 

Arthur carefully speaks into his microphone when he says, “I like it. ‘Man cave’ is a misnomer for it, though. It doesn’t feel at all like a cave, and not at all exclusionary of women. I think women would enjoy this space just as much as men. I think it’s unnecessarily gendered.”

“I agree,” Eames says. “‘Man cave’ is off in terms of branding. I wouldn’t sell it short.” 

“Well,” remarks Alec, “it’s more of an outdoor kitchen than an outdoor living room, wouldn’t you say?” 

“It’s open concept,” Arthur replies easily. 

Gon grins at him. 

Their next contestant is Trizz, and Arthur actually stands outside of Trizz’s space, too alarmed to go in. Because Trizz’s space looks like it is on fire. Really it’s just a profusion of fire pits scattered all over the place, but it gives the impression of a raging inferno. And it’s a breezy day so the flames are snapping out over the edges of the pits. 

“Um,” says Arthur. 

Trizz is standing in the middle of the conflagration. “It’s perfectly safe,” he assures them. 

Eames and Alec both walk into the middle of the flames like there’s nothing to be worried about. Arthur carefully gathers up the flapping tails of his coat and holds them close to his body and inches his way into the space. 

Trizz says, “I wanted to paint with fire,” and gestures to the flames all around them. 

Arthur can see that the fire pits are actually really beautifully arranged in interesting ways, in swirls of patterns and even tiered steps. But Arthur thinks this would have worked better on a less windy day.

“What was your inspiration for this room?” asks Arthur, and he has to really shout to be heard over not only the wind but the crackling of the flames all around them. 

“Hell,” responds Trizz lightly. 

“Okay,” says Arthur uncertainly. 

“Alec,” says Eames, “is your scarf on fire?” 

It is. Alec had been letting it fly dramatically in the wind and so of course it met up with a dancing flame and now it is on fire. Alec shrieks and panics and runs away, and Mal shouts to him, “Take the scarf off!” and Alec says, “I love this scarf!” and Arthur inches his way out of the fire, holding all of his clothing close to him, and says to Eames, “Walk very slowly and very carefully and do not flounce.” 

“I don’t flounce,” Eames protests. 

“Sometimes you flounce a bit,” Arthur says. 

“I _strut_ ,” Eames says. “Like a proud peacock. There’s a difference.” 

They are now a safe distance away from the flames, and Alec is complaining about the charred remains of his scarf on the grass, and Yusuf has moved in to get a good shot, and the other contestants have all gathered around in fascination. 

“And still,” Arthur marvels, “he’s still wearing his hat.”

“You’ve got to admit,” Eames says. “Trizz doesn’t play it safe.” 

“‘Safe’ being the operative word in that sentence,” says Arthur drily.


	108. Chapter 108

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to dracoxlovesxharry for the original idea of the plot point in this chapter!

Once everyone has recovered from their brush with death, Eames says, “I almost feel sorry for whoever’s coming next. It will inevitably be less exciting than that was.” 

The next contestant turns out to be Ariadne, and naturally she’s done something really brilliant. “The theme,” she announces to them, “is hopscotch. Here is the hopping part.” She indicates the flooring of her outdoor living room. It’s done in wide flat stones, and trickling around them is water. Not a lot of it, just enough for the sound of it, and for the flash of the meager sunlight to catch off of it. The spaces between the stones are not wide enough to fit a foot through, so you can walk normally, but they are wide enough that you can clearly see the water below. 

“You’ve made the entire thing into a water feature,” Eames says in delight, and then to Arthur, “It’s like a river hallway.” 

Arthur smiles, because if this is what Eames has in mind for the river hallways, he thinks they’ll be fantastic. 

“Exactly,” Ariadne agrees, beaming. “It works with the water wall over there.” One of the walls of her space has been done in what looks to Arthur like copper, and water is trickling down it steadily, into the pool that wends around the stepping rocks. “So it filters just like a regular water feature would,” Ariadne explains.

She’s set up seating on the paving stones, recliners and a wide porch swing, and in comparison to Trizz’s Fiery Flames of Hell it seems almost impossibly relaxing. Arthur sprawls himself on a chair and says, “I like it.” 

“You haven’t even seen the best part,” Ariadne says, and indicates a ladder off to the side running up to a small wooden loft perched in a rough approximation of a tree. “We weren’t allowed to bring in real trees, so I had to kind of make one. It brought out the artist in me. But I really wanted a treehouse. You can go up, it’s safe, but it will basically only fit a couple of us at a time.”

“Well, that seems impractical,” says Alec. 

“It’s meant to be intimate,” Ariadne says. “This part down here is for the big parties.”

Arthur climbs up the ladder, hearing Eames say to Ariadne, “Requisite climbing shot. Well done.” 

“Into the microphone!” shouts Yusuf. 

The little loft space has a roof overhead to protect it from the elements, beanbags spread out on its wooden floor, a small television, and a small bar that turns out to be surprisingly well-equipped. 

Arthur pokes his head out over the railing and says, “I get it: the scotch part,” holding up the bottle of scotch from the bar. 

“Exactly,” Ariadne shouts up to him. 

Once they’ve all gotten a chance to see the loft area, Mal comes over and says, “We’re going to cut this out later but in all the excitement over the finale news, we forgot to announce last challenge’s winner during this challenge’s announcement. It was Ariadne, so if you could work that in there, that’d be great.” 

“Really?” Ariadne looks pleased. “They voted for me?” 

Alec says, “Oh, yes, _of course_.” 

Arthur frowns at him. 

Ariadne says, “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It must be so nice to be the favorite one,” Alec says scathingly. “Think of how easy this entire competition has been for you.” 

“Hey,” Ariadne begins to protest. 

Arthur says, “Ariadne has worked hard this whole time—”

“You’ve worked harder,” Alec retorts. 

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Arthur demands. 

“Don’t pretend that you didn’t work harder to sell her room than any of the other contestants’ rooms.” 

“No,” Arthur says. “I didn’t. I didn’t have to work hard to sell her room. It sold itself.” 

Alec snorts. “If rooms sold themselves, then you’d be out of a job, wouldn’t you?” 

“If more designers _did their jobs_ ,” Arthur shoots back, “ _effectively_ , then yes, I would be out of a job.” 

“This entire competition has been compromised,” Alec says, “by your _affection_ for Ariadne—”

“I cannot believe,” Arthur fumes, “that you would accuse me of favoritism, considering what we all know you’re doing with another contestant.” 

There is a moment of silence. Mal looks between them, apparently fascinated. Yusuf moves in with the camera. 

“Are you accusing me of something?” Alec says coolly, after a second. 

Arthur, after another second, thinks better of this whole thing. He’s still throbbing with indignation, but he also doesn’t think there’s anything to be gained by having this out this way, especially because he hasn’t really seen Alec favor Misty Rainbow at all. So maybe Alec has a point about the fact that Arthur really does genuinely prefer Ariadne’s designs. Arthur says, “Never mind.” 

“No,” says Alec. “I would like an opportunity to clear my reputation.” 

“Your reputation’s fine, Alec,” Eames inserts. “Perfectly intact.” 

“Because if this is about me and Misty Rainbow, surely you can’t be so stupid as to think that that is anything other than sex. As if I would jeopardize the success of this show for _her_ and her ridiculous, laughable, stupid designs?” sneers Alec. 

Which is when Misty Rainbow says, “Wait. What?” 

Arthur hadn’t realized Misty Rainbow had wandered over but now he notices that all of the contestants have wandered over to see what the dispute is about. So that Misty Rainbow is standing right there, close enough to hear every word that Alec said, and she looks utterly devastated. Her face is crumpled with heartbreak. Arthur thinks of Alec trying to pretend that Eames broke his heart and thinks, _No. You can’t fake that. That’s what a broken heart looks like. It isn’t pretty_. 

“Misty,” Alec says, and tries a smile on. “Hi.” 

It’s so ridiculous in the face of how Misty Rainbow looks that Arthur thinks he can’t get over how horrible and stupid Alec is. 

“You don’t like my designs?” says Misty Rainbow brokenly. 

“Well, you know,” Alec says awkwardly, scratching behind his neck, “how it goes.” 

“But you said…You said you understood them…You said you _got_ them…You said you got _me_ …” 

“Misty Rainbow,” says Ariadne softly, “why don’t we—”

“No,” says Misty Rainbow sharply. “So you didn’t mean any of it? I thought you _liked_ me.” 

“Well,” says Alec, going for affable and missing by a mile and Arthur thinks if Alec is lucky there will be an earthquake that will swallow him whole. “I mean, I liked how good you are at…some things.” 

Ariadne makes a sound like a squeak. 

Misty Rainbow stares at Alec with wide, angry eyes for a second, and then she says, abruptly casual, “No, it’s cool. I know how it goes. You think it’s the first time some asshole has said he likes my designs, likes my worldview, wants to get to a higher plane with me, and only means by that sex? I mean, I don’t get it, I don’t get why guys don’t think I’d be okay with some casual sex, why can’t you just say that, why do you have to go and make people think that they—Fuck you.” 

Alec says, “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, but I mean that genuinely. Fuck you. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I feel it _here_ ,” announces Misty Rainbow, and then knees Alec in the groin. 

Alec crumples and Ariadne gasps and Arthur and Eames both take instinctive steps back and Misty Rainbow marches away, through the crowd of gaping contestants. And Alec’s hat _actually comes off_. Everyone is too stunned by the sum total of all of the incredible events to do anything but watch it as the wind catches it and it rolls off down the field. 

Alec groans and Yusuf barks, “Into your microphone!”


	109. Chapter 109

Mal crosses her arms and demands, “How many people knew Alec was sleeping with Misty Rainbow?”

Everyone looks at each other uncomfortably. 

Mal throws her hands up in the air. “Why am I the last to know?” 

Alec gasps from the ground, “I think I need medical attention.” 

“Oh, stop being such a baby,” Mal says. “Men are always such babies about that. Try bleeding uncontrollably every month for all of your adult life. Let’s move on to the next room.” She stalks away, muttering in French. 

Everyone left behind looks at each other uncomfortably again. Arthur glances at Alec, because he’s really desperately wanted to see him without his hat on, but he looks distressingly normal. He has brown hair, maybe not very thick but not inordinately thin either, and the only remarkable thing about it is that it’s incredibly flat with the world’s worst case of hat hair. A years-long case of hat hair, Arthur thinks. 

Gon eventually says, “Well. I guess congratulations on your challenge win, Ari?” 

“Yeah, congratulations,” chorus the rest of the contestants in subdued tones. 

Eames murmurs in Arthur’s ear, “I’d say something about how Alec’s exaggerating because there isn’t enough there to leave him in so much pain but that’s kicking a man while he’s down, wouldn’t you say?” 

Arthur just gives Eames a look. 

Eames chuckles and kisses his chin. “You should see the look on your face right now. The Internet’s going to go crazy.” 

“Alec lost his _hat_ ,” says Arthur dazedly. “This might be one of the most important events to ever happen on this network.” 

Eames laughs. 

“I’m _serious_ ,” Arthur protests. 

“I know,” Eames agrees ruefully. “And I rather think you’re right.” 

“He has hair!” Arthur says. “Real hair! Is it real hair? It looked real enough. Fuck, is this all being recorded?” Arthur fumbles to cover his microphone. 

“It could be hair that he bought off of orphan children,” muses Eames tragically, “but that seems too much to imagine even of Alec.” 

“What the _fuck_ , Eames,” says Arthur fervently, not about the orphan hair, because clearly that is not true, but about everything else. 

“Such is what happens when you mock a decorator’s room vision,” Eames says gravely. “Misty Rainbow’s right: If he wanted to shag her, he should have left her designs out of it, instead of leading her on. That was just cruel. You have no idea how potent it is to think you’ve found someone who loves you for your designs, because you have no idea how much of a decorator’s _heart_ is in those designs.” 

“Well,” remarks Arthur after a second. “I have some idea what it feels like to be the one who falls in love with the designs.” 

Eames smiles at him and kisses his earlobe and says, “And to think, I thought Alec catching on fire would definitely be the highlight of this episode.”


	110. Chapter 110

Misty Rainbow’s room was scheduled to go next, but Misty Rainbow has locked herself in one of the trailers and is refusing to come out so Mal says while they’re dealing with that, they should just move on to the next room. Half of Arthur wants to raise the issue of Alec continuing to judge but the other half of him doesn’t really feel like having a fight about it. And he still doesn’t want to get into fraternization with contestants, even if what he did with Ariadne was minor. 

So Mal doesn’t say anything about Alec being disqualified and Arthur just goes along with it. As does Eames. 

Alec is moving gingerly and milking his injury for all that it’s worth, limping and moaning piteously with every step.

Eames says, “You just sprinted across the field to get your hat, it can’t hurt you that much.” 

Alec does indeed have his hat perched back on his head. It’s crumpled and much the worse for wear. Arthur would have given up on it but then again, Arthur would not have displayed such unswerving commitment to a hat. 

Alec glares and grumbles something under his breath—“Into your microphone!” Yusuf shouts—and Arthur and Eames walk ahead of his limping form, ignoring him. Eames starts a truly ridiculous conversation about the word “velvet” and its two “v”s and what other words have two “v”s and Arthur says, “Vivacious, and why are we talking about this?” and Eames says, “Vivisect, and do you have a better topic?” and because all of Arthur’s conversational topics would be about Alec and his idiocy and enormous lack of professionalism and _what the fuck is this show?_ Arthur just says, “Va-va-va-voom,” and Eames says, “Hmm, is that an actual word? Does that count? Or is that four words?” and then luckily they are at Sunny’s outdoor living room. 

Sunny says nervously, “This seemed like an appropriate theme at the time I selected it, although it seems…jarring…in light of recent events.” Sunny glances at Alec. 

Alec is ignoring her in favor of studying her design. 

It seems to be a woodland fairy motif. The color palette is pale pinks and vibrant purples, and the flowers are all delicate and airy, reaching toward the sky. Everything about the design seems to draw your attention upward. Sunny has set up a trellis out over her area, and she’s threaded through the trellis wisteria and sparkly tulle in a complicated weaving pattern. Standing underneath the trellis when the sun briefly peeks out from the cloud, it’s converted into a magical glen, the tulle lighting up over their heads. 

Eames smiles at her and says, “It’s lovely.” 

“Do you think so? I was worried it would be too…silly?” Sunny offers. 

“I like it,” Eames says, and sits in one of the bright white wicker chairs.

“Me, too,” Arthur says. It’s not really his style—he doesn’t mind pink and purple in moderation, but this is a bit much—but he likes the mood of the place. He could see it working beautifully well for a certain type of person—and not even a weird, unusual person the way some of the other designs have seemed to suit. 

Alec says, “It’s a little feminine, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Well,” Sunny says, looking around herself hesitantly. 

Arthur snaps suddenly, “First of all, don’t you think labeling things with gendered adjectives like that is insulting? There is nothing inherently feminine about pink or purple or tulle.” 

Alec blinks at him and says, “Well—”

“And second of all,” Arthur continues, steamrolling over him, “who cares? The challenge wasn’t to create a room for you, or a room for a man, or a room for a male audience, whatever the fuck that might be. The challenge was just to create an outdoor living room. That’s what she did. She created the one that spoke to her, the one that was in her _heart_ , which you of all people should get. It’s got tulle and pink and purple and flowers and a trellis and white wicker chairs and it’s lovely.” He turns to Sunny. “Your heart is _lovely_ ,” he tells her.

Sunny is staring at him with wide, grateful eyes. She almost looks like she could tremble into tears. 

It makes Arthur abruptly furious. Alec has bullied this girl into thinking that the things she likes and the things she wants aren’t worthwhile. It’s the same thing he’s done to Misty Rainbow, except that Misty Rainbow, Arthur senses, is going to be strong enough to overcome it. It’s the same thing he doubtless tried to do with Eames, when Eames broke everything off because he was in love with Arthur, only thank God Eames had been strong and stubborn enough not to fall for it. Alec is all about what’s in _his_ heart; he couldn’t give less of a fuck what’s in everybody else’s heart.

And that makes Arthur furious, because arrogant, self-centered, idiot people running around not noticing that other people around them have _feelings_ , are also people, deserve not to be mocked and ridiculed just for having the audacity to _be_ , independent of others—that is Arthur’s least favorite thing in the entire universe, it really genuinely is. 

Alec says, “I’m not saying—”

“Don’t,” Arthur cuts him off. “Don’t even start. Next room,” he tells Yusuf, and marches off. 

Eames catches up to him and says, “Darling—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Arthur says automatically, because he _doesn’t_ , and he wishes Eames had just let him move onto the next room without catching up to him because now Eames is there, warm and familiar and tempting, because Arthur’s body has some sort of instinctive response now to seek out contact with Eames when he feels unsettled. 

“I was just going to say well done,” Eames says calmly, and knowingly, because he says it in the tone of voice of _I’m checking to see how you are but I’m not going to insult you by asking how you are_. 

Arthur looks at Eames and thinks of how soon he can crawl into the backseat and curl up into him and let Eames talk about something stupid and pointless. 

“I’m okay,” he says, and means it.


	111. Chapter 111

Scott’s outdoor space is naturally fairly dull and inspiring in terms of design. He’s done a typical flagstone patio with the usual reclining lounges in unremarkable fabrics. Even his flower arrangements strike Arthur as unsurprising. 

But what Scott has done that’s amazing is that he’s constructed a hanging wall on which are dangling a variety of pots and glass bowls and tin cans and other containers in which he’s put the unsurprising plants. The wall is delightful. It even curls up over their heads, so that plants appear to sprout magically in mid-air. 

Eames loves it. “We can do this when we have an indoor forest,” he enthuses to Arthur. 

Arthur actually feels like they could do it now. He kind of wants this in his office, all this greenery blooming and blossoming all around him all the time. Maybe in their bedroom, too. Maybe they can be better plant people.

Alec says, “The walls are the only remarkable part of this design, though. Sorry, Arthur,” he says sarcastically. “Am I allowed to say that?” 

“It was neither sexist nor hurtful,” Arthur responds primly, “so yes.” 

Alec glares at him underneath the bedraggled brim of his hat. 

Arthur says to Scott, “I get the sense that your _heart_ is really in the things you construct more than the things that you design.” 

Scott appears to blush a little bit and says, “It’s true, yes, mainly. I mean, I love design—that’s why I came on this show—but—”

“I think you’re a born product designer,” Eames says. “I think that might be where your true calling lies. I think you’d come up with brilliant organizational solutions. I’d buy a bunch of them myself.” 

“Really?” says Scott in delight. 

“I want this wall in our house,” Arthur says truthfully. 

“Oh, excellent,” says Eames. “That settles that. Because I want it in _every room_ of our house.” 

***

They only have Misty Rainbow’s room left. 

“Is she…” Eames asks delicately. 

Mal nods. “She says she’s ready to be judged.” 

“Telling phrase,” remarks Eames. 

Arthur glances at Alec and says, “Um. Should Alec—”

“Oh, now I’m so biased I can’t even be allowed to look at her room?” Alec demands scathingly. 

“I just don’t want you to end up curled in agony again,” Arthur replies blandly. 

“You should listen to Arthur,” Eames agrees seriously. “I don’t know how much more abuse your crown jewels can take, considering they weren’t exactly coronation level to begin with.” Eames pauses. “If you know what I mean.” 

Alec turns to Mal, looking outraged. “Are you going to just let them—”

Mal holds up a hand to quiet him. “You’re the one who fucked a contestant,” she points out mildly. “Which was against the show’s one and only rule. No one made you do it. Your judgment is clearly impaired. Not in favor of Misty Rainbow but against her, given the events of the day.” 

“So what’s that supposed to mean?” Alec sulks. 

“That we need to tread carefully,” Mal says. “Let’s see what Eames and Arthur think of her room.” 

“Why what _they_ think?” complains Alec. 

“Because,” Mal reminds him, “they’re the ones who didn’t fuck her.” 

Misty Rainbow’s room is actually really, really nice. It’s simple in a way that Arthur supposes he should have expected from Misty Rainbow. She’s left it entirely grass, and what she’s done instead is set what look like moss-colored boulders at strategic intervals, for seating. She’s introduced several different water features, several of which contain chimes that drift with the breeze or ring gently as the water runs past them. And scattered in clumps are tall feathery bits of wild grass that help to direct you through the area. 

They find Misty Rainbow seated cross-legged on one of the boulders, looking very calm indeed. 

“Come,” she gestures. “Be seated.” 

Arthur exchanges a look with Eames and then sits on one of the boulders. He expects it to be hard and uncomfortable but it’s actually pleasantly squishy, and Misty says, “Sculpted foam. I wanted to go entirely natural in this space but even I had to admit the difficulty of finding comfortable boulders.” 

“It’s nice,” Arthur says, because it is. It is, again, not quite his style—he likes to sprawl in a chaise longue in the sun; sue him—but he can see its appeal. And it doesn’t surprise him that it comes from Misty Rainbow: this is just the sort of minimalist thing she does best. 

Eames says, “It’s very calming.” 

“Yes,” Misty Rainbow agrees. “It works wonders for those times when your soul falls out of balance. It grounds you and reminds you of what matters: sun, water, sky.” She gestures to each in turn. 

Alec has hung back, and Arthur appreciates that, because Misty Rainbow seems reasonably calm now and Arthur thinks she deserves that. She clearly appreciates calming spaces; Arthur suspects it’s because she isn’t actually very calm at all under that veneer. 

And that’s actually how this room feels to him: very calming, but the wind rustles through the feathered grasses and the chimes rise and fall and there’s something about it that makes Arthur think if you squinted you could fall entirely into a much more foreboding version of this room. 

Arthur says suddenly, as it occurs to him, “This room is genius.” 

Misty Rainbow smiles brilliantly at him and says, “Oh, Arthur.”


	112. Chapter 112

“What did you think?” Mal asks, when they leave Misty Rainbow’s room behind. 

“I loved it,” Arthur says. 

“I think Arthur loved it more than I did,” Eames says, “but it was nice.” 

“I just think the room was very her,” Arthur says. “There was just something really complex about it that I liked.” 

“And I think that either that room is the most marvelously calming room ever designed or Misty Rainbow is smoking quality drugs,” says Eames. 

Arthur thinks it could very well be a combination of both. 

Mal says, “So who are you voting off?” 

This gets more fucking difficult every week, Arthur thinks. It’s easier when they leave it up to the public to vote. 

“Not Misty Rainbow,” Eames says. “And that has nothing to do with what happened today. I think she’s lived to survive another day. Especially based on Arthur’s reaction to the room.” 

“Agreed,” says Arthur. 

Alec rolls his eyes and mumbles something. 

Eames says, “Into your microphone, Alec.” 

Alec glares at him. 

Mal says, “Okay. Not Misty Rainbow. So who will it be?” 

Arthur says, “I think my choice to go would be Trizz.” 

“Trizz?” exclaims Alec. “At least Trizz _did_ something. Scott just put some plants in some pots.” 

“That is being unkind to what Scott actually did,” Eames says. 

“And Sunny just threw some tulle in a tree and you went crazy for it,” complains Alec. 

“Trizz _set you on fire_ ,” Arthur points out. 

“Exactly. _Me_. And if I am willing to forgive him, then we shouldn’t hold that against him.” 

Eames says, “Okay, let’s look at it this way: Who do we definitely want to keep for the next challenge?” 

“Ariadne,” Arthur says immediately. 

“Oh, of _course_ ,” complains Alec. 

“What was wrong with Ariadne’s design?” Arthur demands. 

“ _Everything_ ,” Alec answers. 

“That’s not an answer,” Arthur says. 

“Never mind,” Eames says. “Let’s do it our usual way: secret ballot. Rate your choices, one through six. One means you’d award them the challenge, six means you want them gone. The contestant with the lowest total at the end will win the challenge, and the contestant with the highest total will be eliminated.” 

“Fine,” Alec says, with an air of agreeing to something completely unreasonable. 

Arthur rolls his eyes, and they procure paper and writing implements from Mal and go off and rank their choices. Arthur ranks Ariadne first and Trizz last. It’s true that maybe Trizz did more than Scott, but what worked for Scott really worked, and what didn’t work for Trizz really didn’t work. And, anyway, the next challenge is the room-painting challenge and Arthur feels like he’s seen plenty of Trizz’s room-painting skills, what with his pornographic murals. 

So that bit’s easy, but in between Arthur feels like it’s basically all a toss-up. He does his best to rank them. 

When they reconvene and total everything out, Trizz has been eliminated and Gon and Ariadne have numerically tied to win the challenge. 

Eames says to Mal, “Can we just give it to both of them?” 

Mal says, “Why the hell not? It’s not like this show isn’t a total free-for-all anyway.” 

***

Trizz takes his elimination with good humor. Gon and Ariadne toast to their challenge tie, looking adorable about it. Arthur thinks maybe they’ve got a future. 

“They’re a cute couple,” Eames says, “although I’ve no idea what their couple name would be.”

“Let’s worry about Paulia,” Arthur replies. 

“Yeah, we’ve got to do better than that,” Eames says. “Maybe we could do Bacall.” 

Arthur looks at him in confusion. “Like Lauren?” 

“No, like a combination of ‘bacon’ and ‘Paul’: ‘bac-aul.’”

“No,” Arthur says. “Can we go home now?” 

“Yes,” Eames says, chuckling. “I am pretty sure we’re done here for the day. Mal!” he shouts across the field. “We’re off!” 

Mal waves dismissively. 

The wind has whipped up and the sky has gotten grayer and Arthur huddles into the velvet collar of his coat and thinks about the furnace of heat that is Eames and how he’s going to press up against him in the car. 

And then Alec from behind them shouts, “Wait! Guys! Wait up!”

“Oh, Jesus,” Arthur mutters, “what he can possibly want now?” 

They pause, looking back at him. He is running fast enough that his damaged hat nearly flies off of his head and he has to scramble to catch it and clap it back on. When he reaches them, he’s out of breath. 

“What?” Eames asks flatly, in his _I’m in no mood to suffer fools_ tone. 

Alec says, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever offered my congratulations on the two of you getting yourselves another show. That’s great. Congratulations.” 

Arthur stares at him. Arthur stares at him even more when Alec shakes his limp hand energetically. 

Alec says, “And I just wanted to say, you know, if you ever wanted me to guest-star, you should call me up. I could take some pressure off you two. I know how glaring the spotlight can be. Wouldn’t want you to work up too much of a sweat.” Alec gives them that stupid smile he has. 

Arthur is genuinely too astonished to say anything at all. 

Eames says, “Should that ever come to pass, we will let you know,” and then ushers Arthur into the car. “Please,” Eames says to the driver as he closes the door behind him, “drive us away from here as quickly as possible.” 

As the car rockets into motion, Arthur passes from dazed shock to laughter. Helpless laughter. Arthur laughs until he’s curled up against Eames, tears leaking out of his eyes, gasping for breath. Eames is laughing, too. They are caught up in mutual hilarity. 

Arthur says, “But just… _Jesus fucking Christ_ , what _was_ all that? Did we live all that? Did we get high on our way here or something? Or did that all just happen?” 

Eames wipes tears out from underneath his own eyes. “I think it all just happened.” 

“Oh, my God,” Arthur says, “when Misty Rainbow said, ‘I feel it _here_ ’…” 

“And then his hat flew off!” Eames adds. 

And then they are lost to laughter again for a little while. 

Eventually their giggles trail off into a companionable silence. Arthur leans his head against Eames’s shoulder and takes advantage of their closeness to tuck his frigid hands up against Eames’s warm abdomen, underneath his jacket and shirt. 

Eames jumps with a little yelp. “Christ, you’re freezing.” 

“It was cold,” Arthur says. “Normal people would be cold right now. Not weird devil people like you.” 

“You should have stood a little closer to one of Trizz’s fire pits.” 

“Oh, God,” Arthur says, voice choked with laughter again. “How casually you said that. ‘Alec, I think your scarf is on fire.’” 

“I didn’t want to alarm him,” Eames defends himself. 

“His _scarf_ was on _fire_ ,” Arthur says. “I think that deserves alarm.” 

“But I thought in his panic he’d set more parts of himself on fire!” 

“If parts of me are ever on fire, please tell me with some urgency in your voice.” 

“Darling, if parts of you are ever on fire, I will immediately be on top of you trying to smother out the flames.” 

“And then we’ll both be on fire,” Arthur remarks. “This sounds like a solid plan.” 

“I am full of solid plans,” Eames says. 

“Full of something,” Arthur says contentedly. 

“Tonight I’m going to make you fish and chips,” Eames announces, full of big-hearted benevolence. 

Arthur says, “Is that going to involve deep-frying in hot oil?” 

“Of course. How else would you make fish and chips?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “That is a lovely gesture but I think we’ll order in.”


	113. Chapter 113

Eames works late after they get home, walking a client through a design proposal. So Arthur works late as well. Eames retrieves him in his office when he’s done, yawning and saying, “Just think. Maybe next year at this time they’ll be filming all of this nonstop excitement.” 

“No, they won’t,” Arthur says, walking with him to their bedroom, “because our private rooms are off-limits.” 

“Anyway,” Eames says, “probably they’ll be off filming Alec’s special subplot on our show. Whatever that might be.” 

“Christ,” Arthur says, struck anew by the strangeness of that proposal. “What goes on in his head? Really?” 

“Precious little. It’s possible the fedora cuts off blood flow.” 

“I thought there was going to be something really dramatic underneath his hat. I was hoping for a horn, or maybe a weird tail,” says Arthur. “That was a huge disappointment.” 

“Par for the course with Alec,” Eames remarks. 

“If he was that bad in bed, why did you keep sleeping with him?” 

“Because at the time it was uncomplicated. Because we went in with our eyes wide open and we each knew exactly the level of investment we were getting from the other. Because I couldn’t have you so all sex was going to be terrible in comparison.” Eames shrugs. 

They’ve reached their bedroom by now, are automatically winding their way through their bedtime routines. Arthur finishes first and crawls into bed. Eames joins him but props himself up on his elbow, apparently not ready to sleep yet. 

He says, “Alec bothered you today.” 

“Alec always bothers me,” Arthur points out, trying to be very light and oblivious because he doesn’t really want to have a heavy conversation. 

“No, he _really_ bothered you,” Eames says, clearly refusing to let him avoid this. Eames and his stupid love of confrontation. “With Sunny,” he says, as if Arthur needs to have that clarified. 

Arthur says after a second, “He’s a bully, okay? He was emotionally bullying her. I don’t have any patience for that.” 

Eames draws his finger down Arthur’s nose and smiles and says, “I’m glad I don’t have to watch you stare down bullies very often, but you were a thing of beauty to behold.”

Arthur wants to say something seductive and turn the conversation definitively away from this, but instead he inches forward so he can press himself against Eames, so he can breathe him in and think of how nice it is to be so absolutely loved. Arthur doesn’t love Eames because he wants to show him off to everyone who was mean to him as a kid, but Arthur thinks it’s a nice bonus. Arthur hopes those horrible kids hear about his famous life now and say, _Arthur? That scrawny kid? He’s got a following on Twitter and that hot guy as his boyfriend?_

Eames says, “I hope everyone who was terrible to either of us is madly jealous right now.” 

“I was just thinking that,” Arthur admits, and shifts so he can see Eames, frowning. “Who was terrible to you?” 

“You think it was easy?” Eames asks sardonically. “Gay boy in a tiny British village?” 

“I think…I think you’re so incredibly charming that you must have charmed people into it. Or that’s what I thought.” 

“You’re right. I charmed them. But there’s a difference between feeling liked for who you are and feeling liked for who you convince everyone you are. You know that.” 

Arthur does know that. It’s very true. He insinuates a leg between Eames’s and muses, “I wonder what they all think that I grew up to have a sex club.” 

“BFFs with Sebastian Stan,” adds Eames. 

“I bet they’re wishing they shared their lunches with me more often,” says Arthur. And then, “You know, I’ve been to your village. And I think they all genuinely love you. Everyone I met there, they all seemed to just adore you. As they should. They all wanted to make sure that I was good enough for you. I think maybe you were playing a part. But I think you won very real loyalty.” 

Eames looks at him, his changeable eyes hooded, and Arthur wonders if Eames really does think these things, deep down, instinctively, that people only like him because he’s conned them all into it. He’s fairly sure most of the time that Eames is confident of Arthur, confident of how much Arthur loves him, even if Arthur thinks he’s frequently terrible at making sure he expresses it well. Arthur thinks he needs to be better at that; he needs to quell the part of Eames that thinks he’s a slippery charmer who isn’t loved for himself, just as Eames seeks to quell the part of Arthur that thinks he’s too sharp-edged to be cuddled and cherished the way Eames does. 

Eames combs a negligent hand through Arthur’s hair and says, “You were very hot today with Alec,” and waggles his eyebrows. 

Arthur takes the hint and lets them move off the subject and into lighter pastures. He grins and wriggles a bit against him, meaningfully, hoping he’s coming across as coquettish and not ridiculous. “Oh, was I?” 

“Very, very hot. Especially for someone whose hands were apparently so freezing cold the whole time.” 

“One is not connected with the other,” says Arthur, settling a hand on Eames’s chest. Eames flinches a little at the cold, and Arthur says, “Okay, maybe a little connected.” 

“How are you still cold?” Eames asks. 

Arthur shrugs. “It got into my bones. You would know how that is. If you weren’t a devil person.” 

“I think they’re called demons,” Eames says. 

“Oh, you would be the expert on the terminology,” remarks Arthur. 

“Why don’t we see if I can warm you up?” Eames says. 

“I hear the best way to warm up is to share body heat,” says Arthur. 

“I’ve read that fic,” says Eames. “It’s a good one.” 

“Shut up,” Arthur laughs.


	114. Chapter 114

Arthur is in the grocery store contemplating if it would be too optimistic of him to try to make an entire dinner from scratch in honor of Viewing Day when his phone rings. Arthur glances at the ID proclaiming it to be Eames while studying the cuts of meat in the butcher area of the grocery store. They all look like lumps of raw meat to him. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to pick one. 

“Hi,” he answers. “Do you like pork chops?”

“Where are you?” Eames demands. 

Arthur pauses. “Given that I just asked you if you like pork chops, I would hope that narrows down the possibilities for you.” 

“It could be sex code,” Eames points out. 

“Except for the fact that I can’t be in my sex club right now because I _don’t have a sex club_.” Arthur smiles benignly at the little old lady next to him who gives him a startled look and says to Eames, “I’m at the grocery store. You were busy with Paul so I didn’t want to interrupt you but I texted you to tell you where I was going.” 

“Come home,” Eames commands. 

“Right. I will. Eventually. But I thought it would be nice if I tried to cook dinner tonight. Can pork chops be grilled? Because I think we’ve got some kind of grill pan contraption and I could probably manage to make instant mashed potatoes—”

“Saito e-mailed us that we’re to Skype him at our earliest convenience. Why do you never bloody check your e-mail when you’re out? And why does Saito bloody talk like that? ‘At our earliest convenience.’ What is that even supposed to _mean_?”

“It means as soon as we can,” Arthur says, still staring unseeingly at cuts of meat.

“Come home so we can make it as soon as possible,” Eames says. 

Arthur says, “Do you think it’s good news? I mean, do you think he—”

“Of course I think it’s good news. If I thought it was going to be bad news, I wouldn’t interrupt your grocery outing. Now, take a deep breath, because we’re fine, and come home immediately.” 

“Okay,” Arthur says, thinking, Yes, they’re totally fine, it doesn’t matter what Saito says anyway. 

“But,” Eames says, “if you would like to stop and pick me up some Twinkies on your way, that would be lovely.” 

Arthur brings home grapes instead. 

Eames, upon seeing them, says, “Those are very strangely shaped Twinkies.” 

“Newest invention,” Arthur says. “Grapes.”

“Grapes,” echoes Eames. “How terribly exotic.” 

“If you’re very good, I’ll feed them to you and we can pretend we’re in some Greek god AU.” 

“Darling, when you talk fanfiction to me, it makes my heart go pitter-patter.” 

“Let’s not get distracted,” Arthur says. “You made me come home without food for dinner so we could call Saito, not have sex.” 

“Your commitment to Saito over sex disturbs me,” says Eames.

“And your commitment to sex over everything else disturbs me,” replies Arthur. 

“You mean ‘impresses you,’” Eames corrects him helpfully. 

“Ah, yes, I frequently confuse the meanings of the words ‘disturb’ and ‘impress.’”

“I’ve noticed,” Eames agrees gravely. 

“Let’s call Saito,” Arthur says, carrying the grapes into the living room. 

“I don’t know what you’re going to do with those,” Eames remarks. 

“I’m going to _eat_ them,” Arthur says, and pops one in his mouth. 

Eames arches a dubious eyebrow at him like Arthur has just started chomping on the feathers lining his blanket, but he doesn’t say anything further, just sets up his tablet so they can Skype Saito. 

Saito answers with, “Thank you for calling me so quickly.” 

“We squeezed you in between sex and our viewing party,” says Eames. 

“No, we didn’t,” says Arthur. “Ignore him.” 

“It’s quite alright,” says Saito, unfazed. “Such is the famous banter that has made all of us so very rich.” 

“Way to take the romance out of it,” says Eames. 

Saito says, “We have a proposal. They want to keep you in their stable, not at the competition. They’ve agreed to the concept of your new show and to nearly all of your requests. I do think that the changes they wish to make are minor and do not really affect the level of control that I know is so important to you. They want a somewhat longer season than you were used to for _Love It or List It_ , but in exchange they’re letting you out of your _Love It or List It_ contract. They also want to move you to a bigger network, with a larger viewership and more exposure. You’d be one of the flagship shows on the network. It will mean more promotional commitments for the two of you, but the show has agreed that they will be joint the majority of the time, in case you’re worried about the separation between the two of you. We can ask for a percentage to be written into the contract, once you decide on that, and an acknowledgment that the promotional commitments need to be balanced with your real jobs. The network seems excited about that, because they like the idea of your being ‘real’ professionals. They’re going to make it a marketing point.” 

“So,” Arthur says, to make sure he’s understanding correctly, “they’re going to give us basically everything we want.” 

“Including a salary increase. A sizeable one. And I think there might still be room for negotiation on that front.” 

Arthur stares at Saito and tries to comprehend all of this. 

Eames just says, “And I want to clarify: We control who’s on the show with us.” 

“Within reason,” Saito says. “They’ve inserted some language about the necessity for you having assistants to help with your ‘real-life’ commitments, in order to free you up some for the promotional side of the show. But you’d work together to hire the assistants. You’d have final say, as long as you’re behaving reasonably, which is standard contractual language.”

_And we won’t hire Alec Hart_ , thinks Arthur. 

Eames says it right out loud. “I want something in the contract, in writing, in black and white, that we won’t be forced to work with Alec Hart again.” 

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “I don’t want it right there in the contract so that people will think we’re—”

“The contract terms will be confidential,” Saito assures him. “And Eames may be right: If you feel that strongly about Alec Hart, then it should be in your contract. Contracts should always come right out and say exactly what you want out of them. You do not want to leave it to a court to interpret, after all.” 

Arthur, after a moment of hesitation, says, “Fine, then I want that in the contract.” 

“I’m going to e-mail the contract over to the two of you,” Saito says. “Take your time going through it and thinking of whatever more specific language—like the Alec Hart clause—that you might want. The more specific we can be, the better. For instance, on determining how much of your promotional obligations you wish to be joint. We have room to negotiate, and we also have time. Your _Love It or List It_ commitments are several weeks away, and there’s no real indication we’ll lose our bargaining position so quickly. We should move expeditiously, but not recklessly.” 

“That is my motto,” Eames says solemnly. “Expeditious, not reckless.” 

“I’ve no doubt,” Saito agrees, in that tone that Arthur can never quite tell is sarcastic or not. “But I want you to be careful with this. I want you to be happy with this contract. It might be the biggest contract of your professional lives, so I want you to get everything you want. Keeping you happy keeps me happy.” Saito says it very flatly, and Arthur thinks, _If this is Saito happy, what is Saito when he’s depressed?_

Eames says, “We’ll get back to you. Today is Viewing Day, so it definitely won’t be until tomorrow.” 

“Enjoy your show,” Saito says, as if he’s giving them condolences. 

Eames ends the call and turns to Arthur. “Do not get yourself panicked because Saito says this is the most important contract of our professional lives. Even if it is, please note the word _professional_. It has nothing to do with our personal lives, and that’s the most important part. Right?” 

“Right,” Arthur says, nodding his head and refusing to freak out. He thought really hard about their list of demands, and Saito said the network acquiesced. He’ll think even harder to make sure they’re happy with the final form of the contract. He will not fuck this up. He devours a few more grapes. 

“Anyway,” Eames says, “let’s focus on what’s _really_ important right now.”

“Which is?” asks Arthur. 

“You should call Giacomo and order yourself that metallic knit suit you were in love with the other day. We ought to celebrate.”

“That’s just something special for me,” says Arthur. “We should get something special for both of us.” 

“Trust me,” Eames says, and waggles his eyebrows. “That is definitely something special for both of us.” 

“Well, fine,” Arthur agrees, after a second. Mostly because he’s kind of been dreaming about that stupid suit. “But only once the contracts are signed and the ink is dry.” 

“Deal,” says Eames.


	115. Chapter 115

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you, because your reactions to the episodes as they "air" always help shape the Viewing Day chapters. :-)

It’s nice to be snuggled back on the couch under the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket for the viewing party. Arthur had a good time at the viewing party they threw, but still, he’s happy to have his house all to himself again. He’s happy to have Eames all to himself again because he’s crazy selfish when it comes to Eames. 

_Last time on Next Big Thing_ , says the narrator of the show, and all of the previously-scenes are of Arthur’s cutting remarks to Alec, and then Alec snapping, “Cut the filming,” and marching out, and then Arthur, sleek and self-satisfied, showing all of the rooms. 

“I hate that editing,” Arthur grumbles. “That editing makes me look like such a huge dick.” 

“Which is why we’re going to have more control over how we’re edited on our next show,” Eames reminds him. 

The show opens with the crowd of contestants milling around and Alec and Eames and Arthur already in position. So at least there’s no discussion of the second season proposal at the beginning of the episode. Probably Mal was forbidden to air anything about that, anyway. Eames and Arthur on-screen are whispering at each other, Eames’s lips curved into an amused smile, his eyes fastened on Arthur like he’s the only person in the room. Arthur is answering him with a wry expression on his face, not really looking back at him, and Arthur thinks he looks like the world’s worst boyfriend. There’s the adoring Eames fawning over him, and there’s him being stiff and standoffish in response. 

But Twitter is full of things like _Awwww, aren’t they just the cutest? #armes4everything_ and _I like to imagine Eames just whispers really filthy things in Arthur’s ear all the time. Let’s all take a moment to imagine Eames whispering really filthy things. You’re welcome._ and _Think they’re discussing their sex club? I bet they are. #armes4everything_ and _Weirdly I like to imagine that they’re just having a discussion about having to take the trash out. I LOVE IMAGINING THEM AS NORMAL BOYFRIENDS, IDK. #armes4everything_

Arthur thinks that’s actually really sweet, imagining him and Eames as “normal boyfriends,” because they _are_. 

So Arthur tweets, _If you’re wondering what we’re talking about, we were discussing what to have for dinner that night_ , because it is true after a fashion, and people retweet it like crazy while “dying” over how adorable they are, and Eames says to him, amused, “Look at you working social media like a pro.” 

“Hey,” Arthur tells him good-naturedly, “I _am_ a pro.” 

On the episode, Alec has now launched into his ridiculous speech of gratitude. Eames is managing to look just the right mixture of politely interested and wryly absurdist about the whole thing. Arthur, of course, looks like he can barely comprehend how ridiculous Alec is. 

Twitter seems to love it. 

_ARTHUR’S FACE. #arthur4everything_

_ARTHUR’S FACE IS EVERYTHING. #arthursface4everything_

_Can we just declare Arthur’s face a wonder of the modern world? #arthursface4everything_

Someone, in fact, has already managed to make a gif of it, as it shows up attached to a tweet that reads, _Me, too, Arthur. Me, too. #arthur4everything #arthursface_

_WHAT THE FUCK IS ALEC EVEN TALKING ABOUT? Arthur, I feel you, bb. #arthur4everything_

“But we can teach our scars to feel again,” Alec says on the episode. “If we acknowledge that we did not heal them correctly, then we can find our way forward. There is hope for all of us, and I wanted you all to know that.” Arthur watches him lay his hand over his heart and shift ever so slightly toward Arthur and Eames on-screen. “Thank you,” says the on-screen Alec. 

The on-screen Arthur just stares at him. 

The on-screen Eames says, “You are so very welcome, Alec. We are so glad that you have taken all of us on this astonishing, really quite unbelievable journey. Quite unbelievable.” 

Twitter says, _EAMES FTW. #eamesftw_

Jess is eliminated, and she goes with bouncy exuberance, and Twitter doesn’t know what to make of that, which Arthur doesn’t blame them for. 

Alec says on-screen, “How sad,” and real-life Eames actually bursts out laughing, which makes real-life Arthur laugh, too, because you really do have to just laugh at all of this. 

Then on-screen Alec announces the two-hour live finale and Twitter erupts with the joy that Alec clearly expected of the contestants. 

_TWO HOUR LIVE FINALE???? Yaaaaaaaay! #nbtaddiction_

_I AM PLANNING ALL THE PARTIES. CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULES. #nbtaddiction_

_But, guys, this means the show will be over! I don’t want the show to be over! #sniffle_

_How amaaaaaazing do you think Alec is going to be live? I CAN’T WAIT. #nbtaddiction_

_HOW AMAZING IS ARTHUR’S FACE GOING TO BE LIVE???? #arthursface4everything_

_I want all the inappropriate remarks. I want Eames to just randomly start stripping. HOW CAN WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN? #nbtlivefinale_

_I expect Sebastian Stan to be there. And I expect him to spill all about the sex club. NOTHING LESS WILL SATISFY ME. #nbtlivefinale_

_WILL THERE BE AN AUDIENCE. HOW DO I GET TICKETS. I WILL SELL INTERNAL ORGANS IF NECESSARY. #nbtlivefinale_

Arthur tweets, _Eames and I are looking forward to the live finale! #nbtlivefinale_ , which is kind of a lie, because Arthur doesn’t want to do live television, really. And then he adds, _But I hate to disappoint all of you, but I don’t have a sex club and I don’t know Sebastian Stan._ Not that anybody will believe him. 

Eames tweets, _I don’t plan to start stripping. Unless Sebastian Stan shows up, and then who knows what could happen? #nbtlivefinale_

“Eames,” Arthur sighs. 

“Darling, our ratings will go through the roof if people think I’m going to take my shirt off.” 

“Ego, Eames. Ego.” 

“What about it?” asks Eames innocently. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

The episode shifts into the designing portion. Arthur can tell that Eames always really enjoys this portion of the episodes. He’s fascinated by the way other designers think. Arthur knows it’s partly why the idea of _Next Big Thing_ appealed to him in the first place. Arthur is a loner who chose a bit of a loner profession. He needs contacts but he doesn’t need to have really intense conversations about the hopes and dreams of other real estate agents over drinks. Eames, though, loves to have those kinds of conversations with other interior decorators. Eames likes to think his rooms are part of one great big conversation that humanity has been having since they first moved into caves. 

The designers don’t seem to know a whole lot about flowers. “We’re not _landscape_ designers,” Trizz interviews on-screen, as if faintly appalled that they might be mistaken for such. 

Real-life Arthur remarks, “Probably why he used fire to make all possible flowers impossible.” 

“I don’t think you need to know about flowers to just make things look pretty,” Misty Rainbow interviews on-screen. 

Real-life Eames says, “She’s right. I can’t really make up my mind about her. Sometimes I think she’s Alec-like in her focus on the dramatic perception side of things, but other times I think she’s actually really, truly committed to a very certain worldview that isn’t opportunistic at all.” 

“I think she’s a kid,” Arthur says, “who’s finding her way, and unfortunately doing it on national television with an asshole taking advantage of her.” 

Eventually, Arthur and Eames and Alec appear on-screen, Arthur looking smart in his coat. The navy is actually a bright shade, and Arthur likes how it looks on camera, how the uncertain half-light of the day plays off of it. 

He checks Twitter to make sure his fandom has taste and also approves, and they do. 

_THAT COAT. *faints* #arthur4everything_

_I was going to complain about the suit being covered up but trust Arthur to show up in a coat that makes me forget about the suit. #arthur4everything_

_I can’t help it: That coat makes me want to peel Arthur out of it. Put another layer on, bb, you’re just making me more hot and bothered. #arthur4layers #arthur4everything_

_Look at Arthur’s coat flapping in the breeze and the way Arthur keeps grabbing at it. How is Alec’s hat staying on????_

“Someone finally asking the important question,” Arthur says, showing the tweet to Eames. 

Eames says, “This is the important question,” and reads out loud from his phone, “Arthur’s designer coat is a thing of great beauty and meanwhile Eames has decided to wear whatever he found in someone’s trash on the way to filming.” Eames actually looks proud as he reads it. 

“Eames,” Arthur says, “that’s not a _compliment_.” 

“It has a little smiley-face after it,” Eames says, as if that ends the debate. “And here’s another one. Eames’s style is best described as Dickensian-street-urchin-slash-down-on-his-luck-smarmy-con-artist.” 

“Truth,” Arthur says fervently. 

“And I love it,” Eames finishes reading, with a flourish. “Ha!” he proclaims, and shows Arthur the tweet on his phone triumphantly. 

Arthur just shakes his head sadly. 

The sound on the episode as they judge Gon’s room keeps cutting in and out in an unpleasant way, the wind whipping up in places, and Arthur understands why Yusuf kept shouting at them. It’s worse in Trizz’s room, where they also have the crackling of the fires to contend with. 

And then Alec catches fire. You can see it clearly on the corner of the screen, a few seconds before Eames says, “Alec, is your scarf on fire?” 

Alec goes darting out of the space, shrieking in panic, and Mal starts shouting at him, too, and everything is chaos.

Twitter is going crazy, but mostly they can’t manage anything more coherent than _OH MY GOD_. 

One says, _HOW IS THIS SHOW SO AMAZING. I CAN’T. I CAN’T. #aleconfire #nbt_

There’s a swooping close-up shot of Alec’s charred scarf on the grass. Arthur and Eames aren’t on camera, but their microphones were still working, because Arthur’s off-camera voice says, “And still, he’s still wearing his hat.”

_OH MY GOD ARTHUUUUUUUR YOU ARE SO RIGHT HOW???? #wtfisupwithalecshat #nextbigthing_ , says Twitter. 

The episode goes to commercial.


	116. Chapter 116

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Aja here, who I think may have been the first to use "Gonriadne"?

When the episode comes back from commercial, it’s to a scarf-less, but hat-intact Alec walking with Arthur and Eames to the next room. Arthur still has his coat tucked in close against him, as if he was traumatized by the possibility that it could have met the fate of Alec’s scarf. Arthur hadn’t even realized he’d been doing that. 

Eames remarks, “Darling, you look like at any moment cruel fate might wrench that coat from you.” 

Twitter notices, too. _Poor Arthur’s Coat. It’s worried about Alec’s scarf._

Arthur tweets, _You hate to see anything bad happen to clothing. Except for Eames’s jacket. That could have caught fire._

“Ha ha,” Eames says when he sees it, and tweets, _Arthur doesn’t date me for my fashion sense. He dates me for other reasons. If you know what I mean._

Arthur rolls his eyes but retweets the tweet with, _Insert Eamesian leer here_. 

Naturally, many, many Tweeters immediately do retweet Arthur’s retweet with an attached gif. 

Eames on-screen says, “I almost feel sorry for whoever’s coming next. It will inevitably be less exciting than that was.” 

But it’s Ariadne’s room, of course, and it looks just as lovely on-screen as it did in person. Because of the breeze, you can’t hear the trickling of the water as well, so Arthur tweets, _In person, Ariadne’s room was filled with the sound of the water winding around the stones. It was lovely._ And he doesn’t even care that people are going to think he’s playing favorites, because he knows what’s coming up in the episode. 

Arthur climbs up the ladder. 

Twitter shouts, _REQUISITE CLIMBING SHOT. #thanksariadne_

Eames on-screen says to Ariadne, “Requisite climbing shot. Well done.” 

Twitter says, _AHAAHAHAHAHA. Eames is looking out for us. #thankseames_. 

_Eames likes the climbing shots just as much as we do. #eames4arthur_

_I’m installing a ladder in our bedroom_ , Eames tweets. 

Arthur just sighs. 

Mal appears on the screen to announce that Ariadne won last week’s challenge. 

_I was wondering about that_ , says Twitter, and _Go, Ariadne! #teamariadne #teameames_. 

And then the situation on-screen goes downhill quickly. Alec accuses Arthur of favoritism, of working harder to sell Ariadne’s room. Twitter is outraged on Arthur’s behalf. Arthur shoots back with his line about designers doing his job, and Twitter says, _ARTHUR IS THE BEST AT BURNS. #arthur4micdrop_ and _Whoa, Alec getting burned ALL OVER THE PLACE on this episode. #aleconfire #notthegoodway_. 

And then Arthur on-screen snaps, “I cannot believe that you would accuse me of favoritism, considering what we all know you’re doing with another contestant.” 

It actually takes Twitter a moment to react to that, and then it reacts mainly with, _!!!!!!!!_ and _SPILL, ARTHUR. TELL US. #omg #nbtdrama_. 

And on-screen, it isn’t Arthur who spills, of course; it’s Alec. 

Alec says, “Because if this is about me and Misty Rainbow, surely you can’t be so stupid as to think that that is anything other than sex. As if I would jeopardize the success of this show for _her_ and her ridiculous, laughable, stupid designs?” 

Twitter reacts with, _OMGWHAT #nbt_. 

And then on-screen Misty Rainbow says, “Wait. What?” 

And Twitter reacts with, _OMGWHAT!!!!!! #nbt_. 

Alec awkwardly tries to appease Misty Rainbow and Misty Rainbow continues to look heartbroken and devastated on-screen. 

Twitter is appalled. 

_OMG, poor Misty Rainbow, she looks like she actually fell for this creep???? #nbt_

_When I said I wanted Alec to get laid, I didn’t mean like this! #poormistyrainbow_

_Never mind, I don’t want Alec to get laid. WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP SLEEPING WITH THIS GUY? #mistyrainbow #eames #whathehell_

_Ugh, why does Alec keep saying these horrible things? Doesn’t he realize what a jerk he sounds like? #nbt #alec4selfawareness_

_Alec is the world’s biggest dick. I cannot believe what he is saying to Misty Rainbow right here, on camera, in front of all these people. #wow #nbt_

_I’d say points to Alec for honesty except it doesn’t count when he lied to Misty Rainbow first. #ugh #nbt_

_Look at everyone else’s faces. They can’t get over this, either. #nbt_

And then, on-screen, Misty Rainbow rallies. “(Beep) you,” she says, and talks over Alec’s attempt to interrupt her. “(Beep) you. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I feel it _here_.” And then she knees Alec in the groin. 

_OH MY GOD_ , says Twitter. 

_GO MISTY RAINBOW_. 

_MISTY RAINBOW SPEAKING FOR ALL OF US_. 

_THIS SHOW. I SWEAR TO GOD, THIS. FUCKING. SHOW. #nbt_

“I think I need medical attention,” Alec says from the ground, and the show cuts to another commercial. 

Twitter launches into the commercial break with, _DID HE LOSE HIS HAT? I THINK HE LOST HIS HAT_ , and _I just rewound so I could watch again. Very satisfying, I highly recommend it, and it’s clear that Alec lost his hat. It’s a blurry shot, though, can’t really see his head._ and _PLEASE LET US SEE WHAT’S UNDER ALEC’S HAT._

Arthur scrolls through Twitter, remarking, “That was painful to watch.”

“Painful for Misty Rainbow,” says Eames. “But she came out on top in the end.” 

“I just don’t understand how you can be _that_ tone-deaf about how you’re coming across,” Arthur says. 

“I don’t know,” Eames shrugs. “It’s hard to see yourself clearly.”

Arthur pauses in his scrolling and looks at Eames. “If I behave as ridiculously as Alec, ever, at any time, you are to tell me immediately.” 

“Darling,” Eames says, “you don’t see yourself clearly, but in the exact opposite way in which that afflicts Alec. Don’t worry. At all. In the meantime.” He holds up his phone. “Poor Twitter is, like you, going to be very disappointed by what’s underneath Alec’s hat.” 

The episode comes back to everyone still standing around Alec looking awkward. There’s a good shot of Alec’s head and Twitter is mostly, _Oh, damn, he’s got hair_ and _I thought Alec’s head was going to be way more interesting than that_. 

Gon says on-screen, “Well. I guess congratulations on your challenge win, Ari?” 

_I LOVE GON_ , says Twitter, and _Team Gonriadne 5eva!_

“Ha,” Arthur says, showing Eames the tweet. “They’ve already got a fandom.” 

“Gonriadne,” Eames repeats. “Armes is better. So is Bacaul.” 

“We’re not going with Bacaul,” Arthur says. “And it’s a ‘j’ sound, remember?” 

“Oh, right. It’s not better with a ‘j’ sound.” 

“Maybe it should just be Gori,” Arthur says. “I mean, Ariadne’s just a tough name to work with, you know?”

“Agreed. Parents don’t think enough about possible portmanteau names when they name children.” 

Meanwhile, on the screen, there’s a shot of Arthur looking dazedly astonished at everything that just happened. 

Twitter immediately screenshots it and there are many tweets of it with things like _Once again, Arthur’s face speaks for the entire Internet #arthur4allofus #arthur4everything_. 

“Alec lost his _hat_ ,” says Arthur on-screen. “This might be one of the most important events to ever happen on this network.” 

_TRUTH, ARTHUR. YOU SPEAK TRUTH #arthur4truth_ , proclaims Twitter. 

“He has hair!” Arthur continues babbling on-screen. “Real hair! Is it real hair? It looked real enough. (Beep), is this all being recorded?” There’s a scuffling noise as Arthur tries to cover his microphone. 

Eames on-screen says, “Such is what happens when you mock a decorator’s room vision. Misty Rainbow’s right: If he wanted to shag her, he should have left her designs out of it, instead of leading her on. That was just cruel. You have no idea how potent it is to think you’ve found someone who loves you for your designs, because you have no idea how much of a decorator’s _heart_ is in those designs.” 

“Well,” remarks on-screen Arthur after a second. “I have some idea what it feels like to be the one who falls in love with the designs.” 

Eames on-screen smiles at him and kisses his earlobe and says, “And to think, I thought Alec catching on fire would definitely be the highlight of this episode.” 

Twitter says, _Awwwww, these two, I love them so much!!!!! #armes5eva_.

_My life goal is to have a relationship like #armes. #armes5eva_. 

_Can we get these guys another show without all the crazy? Not that I don’t love the crazy, but I want to just be able to roll around in HOW ADORABLE THEY ARE. #armes5eva_. 

“Ha,” remarks Eames. “Little do they know.”


	117. Chapter 117

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you (I think) to: 
> 
> Rhyolight, Aja, hakkai_sensei, and afiendishthingy for the double-v words; 
> 
> elleadit for the #arthur4feminism hashtag; and
> 
> zae for the #arthur4genderequality hashtag;

On the episode, Alec limps and moans and Eames says, “You just sprinted across the field to get your hat, it can’t hurt you that much.” 

Twitter says, _The only person even half as awesome as Arthur is Eames. #trufax #armes5eva_. 

It also says, _Alec’s got his hat back on. Alec’s relationship with his hat is probably the most committed relationship he’s ever had. #teamaledora? #alecandhatOTP_.

And, _Guys, why is Alec still judging here? Shouldn’t Alec be disqualified or something? Am I missing something? #huh_

And then, on the screen, Arthur and Eames are abruptly debating words with two v’s, and Twitter is saying _Vivid!_ and _Verve!_ and _Velveeta!_ and _Valve!_ and _Vulva!_ and _Viviparous!_. 

“There are way more two-v words than we came up with,” Arthur remarks. "How did we miss Velveeta?"

“Vulva?” Eames says. “We’d have played that game for a while before coming up with that one."

"That's the one you think would have stumped us?" says Arthur. "Not viviparous?" 

"Listen to this tweet," says Eames, and reads aloud. "See? Seriously. I would watch them talk about ANYTHING. Hashtag armes5eva.” Eames looks up at Arthur. “This is great. This is doing nothing but strengthening our bargaining position with the network.” 

On the episode, Sunny introduces her woodland fairy motif room, and Arthur and Eames praise it, and Alec says, “It’s a little feminine, wouldn’t you say?” 

And then Arthur shuts him down. There’s not really any other term for what happens. He watches himself deliver his clipped speech to Alec and then turn to Sunny and say, “Your heart is _lovely_.” 

Twitter adores it. There’s a lot of #swoon and #faint and #ARTHUR4EVERYTHING and #ARTHUR4FEMINISM and _I thought I couldn’t love him more and then he goes and does that #bestillmyheart_ and _YOU TELL ‘EM, ARTHUR, COLORS DON’T HAVE GENDERS. #arthur4genderequality #fuckyes_. 

“Don’t,” Arthur snaps on-screen, over Alec’s protest. “Don’t even start. Next room.”

More #swoon and #faint and a few tweets that say things like, _I don’t want to beat a dead horse but: SEX CLUB, MY FRIENDS. THIS IS WHAT HE’S LIKE WHEN HE RUNS THE SEX CLUB. #arthur4everything_

The episode moves on to Scott’s room, and Eames tells Scott he should be a product designer, and Twitter agrees that that is sage advice. 

Eames in real-life says, “So. Plant wall.” 

“I want one in my office,” Arthur says. “Except I’m worried I’ll kill all the plants.” 

“I’ll help you take care of them,” Eames says. “But maybe we’ll start off smaller than an entire wall. I’ll draw up some designs.” 

“Thanks,” says Arthur. “I’ll pay you in blowjobs.” 

“Oh, excellent,” says Eames. 

On the episode, they arrive at Misty Rainbow’s room. 

Mal, because she is Mal, leaves in the conversation where Arthur questions whether Alec should be allowed to judge Misty Rainbow’s room and Eames makes his snide comment about the state of Alec’s family jewels, which Twitter predictably loves. 

And then the episode shifts into shots of Misty Rainbow’s room. It comes across well. In fact, Arthur thinks it comes across even better on the screen than it did in person, like the multi-layered mood of it—the calmness fighting with the foreboding thrum that it keeps pushing down—is more articulate without all of the other distraction that was going on that day. 

Eames confirms Arthur’s opinion by saying, “Actually, you’re right about that design. It is really, incredibly, unexpectedly, complexly lovely.”

And most people on Twitter seem to agree. 

_I was rooting for Misty Rainbow anyway, so I’m glad her room is actually really beautiful. #nbt #teammisty_

_This room actually makes me a little sad for her. Like, her soul’s all on display and Alec just stomped on it. #nbt_

_I’m thinking about what Eames said about a design being a decorator’s heart and it’s making me really feel for Misty Rainbow here._

_Ugh, CAN WE GET RID OF ALEC NOW? I just want this show to be cute fun people being cute and fun together! #nbt_

A part of Arthur is almost sad they didn’t give the challenge victory to Misty Rainbow, although he genuinely thinks, without all of the drama, that Ariadne and Gon had better designs. But he is pleased that Misty Rainbow had such a strong, amazing, in-your-face showing to close out the episode. 

When Trizz is eliminated and Gon and Ariadne share the top prize, no one on Twitter seems all that surprised or outraged. The discussion moves into predictions of who will be part of the finale’s final four, and oh, yeah, what’s this live finale going to be about again? 

Eames says, “Good episode,” and turns the television off. “Satisfying episode.” He turns to Arthur. 

“Now I have to go review the most important contract of our professional lives.” 

“Hmm,” says Eames. “Can I tempt you to do something else first?” 

Arthur cocks his head and pretends to be consider. “It depends. What did you have in mind?” 

“It involves you kneeling by my side here and feeding me grapes one by one and saying things like, ‘You incredible Greek god.’”

“Then no,” Arthur says. “I think I hear my spreadsheets calling me.” 

He laughs when Eames rolls them off the couch.


	118. Chapter 118

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am looking for questions! If you were playing the role of Twitter in this 'verse and you were given the opportunity to ask questions during the live finale, what would you like to ask? Go here and tell me and I'm going to try to work them into that episode! http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/116128503436/the-nbt-live-finale

Arthur spends most of the night going through the legalese of their contract with a fine-toothed comb. Arthur is used to legalese, but still, he really wants to make sure that he gets this right. 

He tumbles into bed late, next to the snoring bulk of Eames, and curls up into his warmth. Eames makes space for him automatically, pulling him in, and Arthur knows it’s a blindly instinctive reaction on Eames’s part, and that eventually Eames will get too hot and push him away, and still Arthur thinks, _I love you_ , at the gesture. 

He wakes to an empty bed. Which isn’t surprising once he sees the time. 

He takes a shower and is treated to a smiley-face greeting from Eames on the bathroom mirror. Which is lovely and charming and means that now Arthur is going to have to clean the mirror again. 

He selects an outfit for the day and wanders into the kitchen. The house is empty and silent and he’d wonder where Eames is except that there’s a note waiting for him in the kitchen. 

_Sales trip with a client. Don’t work too hard. We’ll talk contracts when I get home. E._ And a heart drawn underneath it, because that’s how Eames is. 

Arthur smiles and pours himself a cup of coffee from the pot Eames made for him before he left and then takes it and the note into his office. He puts the note with the other notes Eames has left him over the years, because yes, he saves each and every single one and he refuses to be mocked for that. And then he goes over the contract again. 

By the time he’s done, he can hear Eames making a racket in the kitchen, which can only mean that he must be attempting to cook again. Arthur spent a long time wishing one of them could cook, and now he’s experiencing the classic case of being careful what you wish for. 

Arthur goes to the kitchen to find every pot and pan they own scattered over their counters. At least, that’s what it looks like to Arthur. He’s never bothered to count exactly how many pots and pans they own but an impressive number are on their counters at the moment. 

“Hello, darling,” Eames says brightly when he sees him. 

“Are you making food?” Arthur asks, because he supposes the other possibility is that Eames is taking an inventory. 

“I am,” Eames beams at him, very proud of himself. “You vetoed the fish and chips so I thought I would make you tuna fish salad.” 

“Did you catch a live tuna and now you’re descaling and deboning it in our kitchen?” asks Arthur. 

“Of course not. I bought a can.” 

“So you…opened a can of tuna fish…?”

“And mixed it with mayonnaise and some other secret ingredients, I do have some culinary skills, darling. And I toasted some bread so we can have sandwiches.” 

“So why is every pot and pan out of our cupboard?” asks Arthur in bewilderment. 

Eames almost looks surprised at the mess he’s made. “Huh,” he says. 

Arthur shakes his head and says, “Well, thank you for my tuna fish salad.” 

Eames grins at him and pulls him in by his tie for a kiss. “It’s a good thing I’m good in bed, isn’t it?” 

“An extraordinarily good thing,” Arthur agrees, kissing him back. “And that you woo so beautifully with fabric and color.” 

“And a well-placed accessory,” adds Eames. “Never forget the value of a well-placed accessory.” 

“Never,” Arthur replies gravely, and lets Eames kiss him up against the counter, and eventually Arthur mumbles, “Did you want to have lunch?” 

And Eames says, “No, actually, not at all, I’m rubbish at making tuna fish salad.” 

“Take me to bed,” Arthur commands.

Eames goes to obey and naturally manages to nudge them both into a precarious pile of pots and pans that come crashing down to the floor. 

Arthur sighs and looks at the mess. 

“Don’t get distracted,” Eames urges. “Keep your eye on the prize, hmm?” Then he points to his crotch. 

Because that is clearly irresistibly charming. 

Arthur laughs because he can’t help it. “Jesus Christ,” he says, and tips his head onto Eames’s chest. 

“I don’t know where all these pots and pans came from,” Eames says. “I think little elves leave them here in the night. There is no earthly reason for us to have so many pots and pans.” 

“Optimism,” Arthur says. “Let’s go to bed and maybe we’ll come back to find that my leprechaun friends have cleaned up all the pots and pans.” 

“You’re talking about your leprechaun friends,” notes Eames. “You must be in a very good mood. The contracts must look good.” 

“Shut up. I’m not going to let you talk me into jinxing the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow.” 

“I am filing all of this sexy leprechaun talk away for the Darby O’Gill AU I’m going to write.” 

“It isn’t sexy leprechaun—What Darby O’Gill AU?” 

“Top o’ the morning to ye,” says Eames, in a truly dreadful Irish accent, and waggles his eyebrows. 

Arthur claps his hand over Eames’s mouth and says, “Just stop talking and fuck me, okay? Jesus.” 

Eames laughs under the muffle of Arthur’s hand and playfully nips at his palm and kisses him to their bedroom, where he doesn’t even bother to move all of the pillows before sinking Arthur down onto them. And the thing about Eames is that a lot of the time his mouth says truly ridiculous things but then, sometimes, he mumbles into every inch of Arthur’s skin, _I love you, your smile and your dimples and the way you roll your eyes and the way you sigh my name and your fierce loyalty and your stubborn determination and your intimidating intelligence and your sly sense of humor and your innate kindness and your uncompromising fairness and the way you love me, the way you let me love you, I love you_ , and those times Arthur says, “Keep talking. Don’t stop.”


	119. Chapter 119

Arthur retrieves his laptop from his office and brings it back to bed and props himself up against Eames’s chest. He puts his glasses on because his eyes were bothering him earlier, probably from his late night. 

Eames growls and nips at his ear and Arthur says, “Stop it, the glasses cannot magically erase your need for a refractory period,” and Eames says, indignant, “ _My_ need?” 

Arthur says, “Can we go over these contracts now?” 

Eames says, “Yes. But only because you want to and not because of this nonsense about refractory periods.” 

“Oh, my God,” Arthur mutters, and then walks Eames through all of the contractual terms, through the specifics he’s requesting to have added. 

Eames lifts his eyebrow at the dollar figures involved and says, “Fuck.” 

“That’s what we asked for,” Arthur says. 

“Yeah,” Eames agrees. “And when we asked for it, I didn’t think we’d get it.” Eames rests his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. 

He’s silent, and Eames is so seldom silent. Arthur lets him have his little bit of processing time, because sometimes even Eames needs to process things. And then Arthur says, “You can have your indoor forest.” He twists a bit so he can make out Eames’s face. 

Eames smiles faintly. “You can have your metallic knit suit. And all of the other suits you could possibly desire.” 

“And we can help your parents with the pub,” adds Arthur. 

Eames’s smile widens. 

“And we can do anything we want,” continues Arthur, warming to the topic now. “We can open our own foundation, maybe. I mean, it would be a little one, but still. Donate more services, for whatever they’re worth. If people want them. I mean.” Arthur shrugs, because it almost seems too ridiculous to say it out loud, so presumptuous of him, that they have anything of value worth offering. But Arthur wants to give back somehow. Arthur wants to find a way to help little boys like him who just longed for a home growing up—a solid roof over his head—and his mom, who deserved to be surrounded by beauty. One of the first things Arthur did after meeting Eames, long before the weird awkwardness that had eventually led to their relationship but after Arthur had fallen in love with Eames and his designs, was to hire him to design for his mother’s house. 

But Eames just says, “Yeah. That all sounds lovely and delightful,” and kisses his shoulder. “Speaking of my parents, I actually wanted to talk to you about them and got distracted when you threw yourself at me in the kitchen.” 

“I didn’t throw myself at you,” Arthur says. 

“If you prefer to think of it that way in order to maintain your dignity, I’m willing to indulge you,” says Eames loftily. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and closes his laptop and leans over to put it on the nightstand. He’ll e-mail Saito as soon as Eames is done with whatever he needs to tell him. “What about your parents?” 

“They rang me this morning. They watched the show.”

“Did they want to discuss Misty Rainbow’s very good knee-aim?” 

“No. They want to fly over and go to the live finale. I rang Mal, actually, just to check, and she says we can have some tickets. I didn’t know if you wanted to bring your mother in. We could have a…like a…you know.” 

It would be the first time their parents would meet, and maybe it’s weird to do it in conjunction with the live finale of their show, but at the same time it seems very them. And Arthur thinks of Eames’s proposal plans, and of how their parents will need to meet sooner or later, and preferably before their wedding. And it makes sense that Eames’s parents want to see this oddly triumphant finale they’re about to have, and it also makes sense that Arthur’s mother shouldn’t miss out on it, either. 

Arthur says, “Okay. Yeah. That’s a good idea.” 

Eames is watching him closely. “Are you sure?” 

Arthur nods. 

“Because I know you’re not thrilled to death over the idea of live television, and if adding parents into the mix is too much then—”

“No,” Arthur says. “I like the idea. It’ll take my mind off the television show. It’ll remind me what’s really important, which is our real life, this, us, our parents and, you know, everything else. Not _Next Big Thing_. I think it’s a good idea to remind me of that, I think I’ll find it soothing.” 

“Good,” Eames says. 

Arthur considers. “Unless you think that I’ll do something so incredibly stupid on live television that it’ll make your parents hate me. Although I suppose it doesn’t matter whether they’re there in person for that or just watch it afterward—”

Eames tugs him down to sprawling so that he can lean over him. “Stop thinking,” he says. 

“Refractory period,” Arthur points out. 

“Yes, fine, but I’m still going to make out with you a little bit and you can’t stop me with your inconvenient science.” 

“Which reminds me: We have to throw out your tuna fish salad for bacteria reasons.” 

“I need you to stop thinking and focus on something else entirely,” Eames tells him. 

“Two contradictory commands,” Arthur says, and he can’t help the fact that he’s laughing as he says it. 

“Oh, my God,” Eames says, and tries hard to effectively kiss him when they’re both laughing.


	120. Chapter 120

Arthur calls his mother. 

She answers sounding pleased to hear from him, and he reminds himself that he is a terrible son who definitely needs to keep in better touch. 

“Hello,” he says in response to her warm greeting. “How would you like a very glamourous trip to a live television show taping?” 

“To a what?” she says, sounding delighted. 

He can’t help that he smiles, because it is possibly his oldest emotion, the joy in causing his mother delight. He says, “You’ve heard about the _Next Big Thing_ live finale?” 

“Of course. You know I watch your shows religiously. I keep a scrapbook.” She says this proudly. 

He’s seen the scrapbook. He’s a little bit alarmed by it, because he’s always found it weird to be celebrity enough that this mother can literally keep a scrapbook of his press clippings, but he would never tell her that because she very obviously adores the fact that her gamble on sending in an application on his behalf turned into all of this. 

Mainly Arthur is grateful because he never, ever forgets that his mother randomly applied for a job for him and then he met Eames. 

His mother is saying, “But what with all the publicity you’ve been getting lately, I’m thinking I’m going to need to start extra volumes.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and takes a deep breath, telling himself he’s not jinxing things to say this. “Actually, Eames and I, we think we’re going to do another show.” 

“Another one? A totally new one?” 

“Yeah, we’re…switching networks, actually. It’s going to be a bigger show. Really just about the two of us. We’re going into business together.” When he says it all out loud, it sounds like an astonishing amount of change all at once. 

But his mother just says, “Arthur, that all sounds wonderful. Are you happy?” 

“Very,” Arthur says, because he is, and it’s nice to say it out loud. “So. The live finale.” 

“Live television, Arthur! It’s so exciting.” 

“Would you like to come see it filmed?” 

“I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble—”

“It isn’t any trouble,” Arthur denies firmly. His mother is like this, is terrible at accepting gifts. He has to perform ridiculous amounts of subterfuge to give her things. Having Eames help her decorate the house was a series of almost absurdist battles over Eames smuggling back in things that he found her trying to return to stores. 

“I don’t want to be in the way,” she says. 

“Mom,” Arthur says. “You wouldn’t be in the way. I tell you that. You should come visit whenever you want.” 

“I know, but Eames doesn’t want—”

“Trust me, Eames would love to have you here.” Eames worships Arthur’s mother, and Arthur knows his mother deserves to be worshipped but he also suspects that Eames has a special attachment to her as a source of Arthurian baby photos and embarrassing stories. “Please come for the taping.” 

“If you really want me to.” 

“I really want you to,” says Arthur, because he does. 

“Then I’ll come,” his mother says, and she sounds tickled by the prospect. 

He smiles again, and then he says, “Listen, um, so, we think Eames’s parents are going to come to the filming, too. Because, you know, why not? You know?” He hopes he doesn’t sound like he’s nervous about all of this. He is _not_ nervous. Eames’s parents are incredibly nice and they’ll be nice to his mother and his mother will like them and anyway that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with his future with Eames. It’s not like Eames is going to break up with him if their parents don’t get along. 

But, fuck it, he is oddly nervous. He wants everyone to like each other. 

“I’ll get to meet them?” She sounds excited about this. 

“Yeah,” Arthur affirms. 

“Oh, I can’t wait!” she exclaims. “Tell them to bring his baby pictures. Are they bringing his baby pictures?” 

If Arthur is going to be subjected to any discussions about his formerly adorable chubby cheeks, then Eames is definitely going to have to deal with the same. “Yes,” he says, “they are definitely bringing Eames’s baby pictures.” 

“This will be delightful. They’re nice, right? You said that you liked them?” 

“They’re very nice,” says Arthur. “I think we’re going to have a good time.”

“Of course we are,” his mother agrees soothingly. “Don’t worry about this.” 

“I’m not,” Arthur lies. “I’ll send you the travel arrangements and stuff.” 

“Arthur. Thank you for this. I’m really looking forward to this.” 

He is a terrible, terrible son who should visit his mother far, far more often than he does. “Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.” 

When he hangs up the phone with her, he e-mails Eames’s parents through the pub e-mail address, which is their only e-mail address. Probably one of the kids who works there part-time will pick it up for them but they’ll get it eventually. 

He writes, _Hello – Eames told me you’re coming to visit for the finale. I think it will be fun! My mother will be coming, too, and she requests that you bring Eames’s baby pictures. I’m sure she will bring mine. Looking forward to seeing you. –Arthur._


	121. Chapter 121

Arthur sits on their couch with his feet in his fuzzy slippers and his fleece-and-feather-boa blanket over his lap and e-mails Saito. Well, actually, he very, very carefully drafts an e-mail to Saito and then very, very carefully reads it over basically sixteen times, checking it and double-checking and triple-checking it against the several different lists he’s made to confirm what they want to be sure to ask for. He just wants to make sure he gets this _right_. 

Eames is sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, his head just at Arthur’s knee, his tablet on his lap. He says, “Hmm. Let me know when you’ve sent the e-mail.” 

“Why?” Arthur asks, reading over the e-mail again. 

“No reason,” Eames says, which means there’s obviously a reason. “Just let me know.” 

Arthur pauses to look at Eames’s head, then shakes his head and decides to send the e-mail and then deal with Eames, which is, after all, Eames’s suggested sequence of events. 

Arthur decides if he keeps reading this e-mail over, he’s going to go crazy. So he forces himself to hit send. And then he refuses to let himself open up the copy in his Sent Mail just to read it over again. 

Instead, he looks down at Eames, sitting on the floor because he does ridiculous things like that. Arthur always loves Eames but sometimes, for no reason, he loves him _so_ much he can’t breathe. 

So just like that Arthur pushes the tablet off of Eames’s lap and replaces it with himself and gives him the kind of kiss that’s in capital letters: KISS. 

“Mmm,” Eames says, when Arthur winds it down and draws back and rubs his nose against Eames’s. “What was that for?”

“Why can’t you sit on the couch like a normal person?” Arthur asks. 

Eames laughs. “I love you, too,” he says, and kisses Arthur’s right dimple-spot. “We need to talk.” 

“Uh-oh,” says Arthur lightly, settling himself more comfortably against Eames. “Are you breaking up with me?” 

“Yes, I’m planning on leaving you for this terribly dapper bloke who’s setting hearts a-flutter on Tumblr.” Eames holds up his tablet. 

Arthur glances at it. It’s a gifset of his speech to Sunny about gendered design and being true to what’s in your heart. It’s been reblogged, Arthur sees, hundreds of thousands of times. On the version that Eames is showing him, someone has added below it, _Who is this incredibly hot, well-dressed man standing up for feminism and can I marry him?_. Someone has answered with, _Sorry, he’s taken, but at least his boyfriend is someone awesome, too. Watch Next Big Thing and rejoice in them._

“It’s all about the coat,” Arthur says. “If you dressed in things that didn’t imply you were color-blind, you, too, could be Tumblr famous.” 

“Darling, I’m a very successful interior decorator. I have a flair for color and pattern. I am _renowned_ for it.” 

“Yes. And I will never understand how you manage to conserve that skill only for use with your rooms.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses his ear and says, “You’re a horrible person.” 

Arthur says, “Did you really need to talk to me about gifsets?” 

“No. I need to talk to you about this.” Eames swipes along his tablet, and brings up an Internet petition. 

Arthur angles the tablet so he can read the petition. It’s to have Alec kicked off _Next Big Thing_ for sleeping with Misty Rainbow. It doesn’t have as many reblogs as Arthur’s gifset but it’s got an impressive number of signatures. Arthur reads a few of the comments. They’re mostly outraged at Alec’s treatment of Misty Rainbow and question his ability to be unbiased going forward. There are a couple saying things like, _Has he been that big of an asshole behind the scenes this whole time? These contestants and Arthur and Eames are *saints*_. 

“Fuck,” Arthur sighs. Because it’s not like he wants Alec on _Next Big Thing_ , and it’s nice being vindicated, but he also doesn’t want to destroy Alec’s life by having him kicked off. There’s only two episodes left, after all. They’ve made it this far. 

“He did break the one rule we were given,” Eames points out. 

“So did I,” Arthur replies. 

“Darling, there’s a magnitude of difference between—”

“The rule wasn’t based on that, Eames. It wasn’t ‘no fraternizing unless you think it’s minor and doesn’t mean much.’ I mean, if that had been the rule, Alec would probably tell you the sex with Misty Rainbow qualifies for that exception.” 

“Ouch,” Eames says. 

“Hey, it’s true. Also, I really enjoy that Alec understands what meaningless sex is except when it comes to you, and then it had to be all about true love. I mean, I’m not _upset_ about it, it doesn’t _bother_ me, I’m just…making an observation.” 

“He’s lying about his feelings being involved and you know that.” 

“I know. I do. It’s just so hard to keep on top of all the contradictory lies he tells. I don’t understand why he hasn’t collapsed under the weight of them.” 

“Because every lie is in service of his career, which makes them all consistent in his brain on some level. He’s very good at believing his own press.” 

“What’s that like?” Arthur wonders. “I wish I had a voice in my head that just chirped, ‘You’re awesome,’ at me all the time.” 

Eames huffs a little laugh against Arthur’s temple. “That’s what you have me for.” 

“Yeah. And vice versa. Basically,” Arthur says, a little haltingly, because he’s not nearly as good at the cheerleading as Eames is. 

“Exactly,” is all Eames says in reply. 

“Do you think Mal will do it?” Arthur says after a second. “Get rid of Alec?”

“She’s got her next deal lined up, so I don’t think she cares too much about ratings right now. And, anyway, if Saito and our next deal are to be believed, Alec isn’t a huge part of the _Next Big Thing_ appeal in the first place.” 

“I don’t want her to,” Arthur says suddenly. 

“Why not?” asks Eames. 

“Because he’s already not gotten the launching point of this show the way the rest of us did. Now we’re going to kick him while he’s down and throw him off with only two more episodes to go?”

“Darling, he did it all to himself. It isn’t our fault or our responsibility to—”

“I know,” Arthur says, frustrated with himself. What is _wrong_ with him? “He’s a horrible person and it isn’t anything he doesn’t deserve.” 

“He’s been awful to you, this entire time.” 

“I don’t even know if he realizes how awful, though, Eames. Like, he’s so oblivious that I’m not even sure he meant to be vindictive. He’s like a puppy who doesn’t know his own strength and accidentally breaks your skin with his teeth while playing with you. It’s like, you know, you can’t get angry at the puppy for that.” 

“Puppies have puppy-dog eyes, though,” Eames points out. “And that helps with the forgiveness.” 

“I know,” Arthur says, and presses his face against Eames’s neck and makes a sound of dismay. “Why can’t I just, like, revel in the karmic justice of this? Am I just unable to let myself enjoy anything ever?” 

“You are just literally the nicest person I have ever met,” Eames says. 

“I already won,” Arthur says into Eames’s skin. “I didn’t need anything else for my victory to be complete. He’s already dug his own grave, he’s never really going to regain the reputation he had before this show.” 

Eames’s hand strokes over his hair. “You want to stick up for him?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Arthur straightens up and tries to shake himself back into some semblance of not-craziness. Because, let’s face it, he’s acting like a crazy person. “What’s he been saying on Twitter?” 

Eames reads from his tablet after a second. “I didn’t expect Misty Rainbow to take everything I said so seriously, exclamation point. You know me, exclamation point. Always kidding around, exclamation point.” 

“Oh, God,” Arthur groans. “Never mind, I’ve changed my mind, how is he so _awful_?”


	122. Chapter 122

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, thanks to whoever posted that Tumblr gifset of JGL on Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman because that got me thinking of baby pictures in the first place.

Arthur can’t help the fact that he’s weirdly torn and conflicted about the Alec situation. Alec is a horrible person who completely used Misty Rainbow and deserves to be thrown off the show, absolutely. That is what he feels most of the time. But some small percentage of the time, he thinks that he’s a horrible person for the fact that it would bring him great pleasure to not have to deal with Alec anymore. And there’s the fact that Arthur not only broke this rule himself but he also punched Alec in the face and nobody ever talked about kicking Arthur off of the show. 

Eames tells him as they’re getting ready for bed that night that he has guilt down to an art form and this is how Eames knows Arthur will never cheat on him. 

Arthur looks at him, stricken, and says, “ _Cheat_ on you? Do you think I would ever do that?” 

And then Eames looks back at him and says, “Oh, no, we are on the precipice of a panic spiral, let me show you this thing I found on the Internet.” 

And he lifts up his tablet and shows him a YouTube video that’s just intercut reaction shots of Arthur, set to _That Don’t Impress Me Much_. 

Arthur says, “What the hell was that?” 

Eames says, “Panic spiral cure.” 

Arthur says, “Wait. What were we talking about before you assaulted my senses with Shania Twain and…me?” 

Eames says, “See?” as if that proves something. 

Whatever. Arthur is busy looking at Saito’s latest e-mail when Eames walks into his office and says, “They want us at the studio earlier than usual today.” 

Arthur has been looking at Saito’s latest e-mail for the past hour, so he hasn’t seen whatever it is that has alerted Eames to their new schedule. Arthur keeps looking at Saito’s latest e-mail. 

Eames says, “Darling?” 

Arthur says slowly, “We have a deal, Eames. Saito’s sent over the contracts. We’re ready to sign.” 

Eames, after a moment, says, “You’re sure?” 

“I have checked the contracts over so many times I’ve lost count. It’s exactly what we wanted and nothing that we didn’t want. All we have to do is sign.” 

Eames says, after another moment, “Not now. We’ll sign tonight. When we get back from filming. We really will celebrate. Can it wait until tonight?” 

There’s a part of Arthur that’s been worrying about this for so long that he just wants to get it over with, but at the same time he thinks that yes, there should be proper ceremony for this. It shouldn’t just be a hurried scribble on their way out the door. 

He writes back to Saito, _Filming right now; will sign when get home_. 

“Okay.” He stands up. “Let’s go, then. Is the driver here?” 

“Ten minutes.” 

“Why do they want us early?” 

Eames just lifts an eyebrow. 

Arthur thinks of the Internet petition, still growing. Alec has kept tweeting, as if oblivious of the swirling scandal. His tweets have been all thoroughly innocuous design-related tweets. _Look at this fabulous room!_ Arthur genuinely can’t figure out if Alec controls his Twitter or not, because Arthur thinks only Alec would tweet so blandly, even in the middle of all of this. 

Arthur sighs and reaches for his suit coat. 

Eames says, “We will never have these issues on our show.” 

Arthur says, “We better fucking not.”


	123. Chapter 123

The meeting is just them and Mal. Mal swears in French and says, “Like I feel like dealing with this with only two episodes until I’m free of this? Why can’t men keep it in their pants, as the expression goes? What is wrong with all of you?” 

“We didn’t evolve properly,” says Eames. 

Mal glares at him as if he is personally responsible for that. 

Eames says, “Look, we are in a committed, monogamous relationship and have not slept with any of the contestants on this show.” 

“And would you like a medal for that?” asks Mal. 

Eames considers. “Possibly. A ‘Fantastic Couple’ medal. Don’t you think, darling?” 

“Are you going to get rid of Alec?” Arthur asks. 

“I don’t know that I have a choice,” Mal replies. 

“Has the network ordered it?” asks Eames. 

“Not exactly. But they have reminded me that I was given free rein over this show, with one rule: no fraternization between the judges and the contestants.” 

“And then we had a huge party and broke that rule,” Eames points out. 

“I know. And they looked the other way because the truth is they didn’t expect this show to be the phenomenon it’s become and the party drummed up interest. But now this? This is a PR nightmare.” 

“For Alec,” says Eames. “Not for the network.” 

“It becomes a PR nightmare for the network if we don’t have repercussions for his behavior.” 

“I have a question,” Arthur says. “What happens to Misty Rainbow?” 

“What?” Mal says blankly. “What do you mean?” 

“The rule was no fraternization,” Arthur says. “We all knew that rule. Misty Rainbow broke it just as much as Alec did.” It was why, after all, he’d been so worried about breaking it with Ariadne: He hadn’t wanted her disqualified. 

Eames says, “Yeah, but Alec’s the arsehole.” 

“That isn’t how rules get applied. If I’m Alec and I get kicked off this show, she’s the first one I go after.” 

“Alec wouldn’t,” Eames counters, “because do you know how bad he’d look?” 

“ _I_ know how bad he’d look, yes,” Arthur replies. “But I don’t think Alec ever has any clue how bad he looks.” 

Mal mutters in French again. Arthur speaks fluent French—something he’s never disclosed to Mal—but she says it so low he can’t catch it. Then she says, “Misty Rainbow doesn’t deserve to get kicked off the show. I would hate for this show’s outcome to be decided by stupid sex.” 

“I think this meeting doesn’t contain the relevant people,” Eames says. 

“I didn’t want the network involved—” begins Mal. 

“Not the network,” says Eames. 

Mal looks at Eames incredulously. “You can’t mean Alec.” 

“The contestants,” Eames says. “They’re the ones most affected by whatever happens to Alec and to Misty Rainbow. I think we should be talking to the contestants.” 

***

In the end they decide that Eames is right, the contestants should be involved in the decision. So Mal calls in all of the contestants except for Misty Rainbow and explains that they need to decide whether to eliminate both Misty Rainbow and Alec from the show. 

“Don’t you think Misty Rainbow should be here for this discussion?” asks Ariadne. “It doesn’t seem right to decide her fate without her.” 

“If Misty Rainbow is involved, Alec has to be involved,” Eames says. 

“Frankly,” Mal says, “I’m not sure their involvement matters at all. They broke the rules. They don’t get to decide what the judgment should be.” 

Ariadne meets Arthur’s eye, and he can tell she’s thinking of their own indiscretions. 

It doesn’t surprise him at all that she’s the first one to say, “I think they should both stay.” 

“Both of them?” says Gon, sounding surprised. 

“I think Misty Rainbow should get to stay, for obvious reasons,” explains Ariadne. “She’s a good designer and she deserves to finish out this competition on her own merit, not based on who she slept with. I mean, I’m kind of tired of judgments based on who people sleep with.” 

“That’s a good point,” says Mal. 

“And if Misty Rainbow gets to stay, then Alec should stay, too,” continues Ariadne. “It’s true that he’s, you know, an asshole and everything, but I think the competition should finish as it began. Unless Misty Rainbow is alleging something that I don’t think she is, then I think Alec should stay. I think whoever wins should get to win by impressing all three judges. And I think Misty Rainbow would appreciate having the opportunity to redeem herself and shove it in Alec’s face.” Ariadne pauses. “Not to speak for Misty Rainbow, but, yeah.” 

“I agree,” says Sunny, and Arthur would not have picked her to be the next one to speak. “I’ve been talking to Misty Rainbow about this, and she doesn’t want to be known as The Girl Who Slept With Alec Hart. I mean, she might not have a choice but she should at least have a chance to redeem herself. And it would be sweeter to redeem herself while he’s still here on the show.” 

There’s a general murmur of assent to this from the rest of the contestants. 

Mal says, “So we’re all in agreement? They both stay?” 

The murmur of assent is a little louder this time. 

“Plus,” Scott adds, “I really want to see what he does on the live show.” 

Eames snorts. 

Mal says, “Okay. That settles it. I’ll write up some kind of press release about how, after conferring with all those involved with the show, we decided both Misty Rainbow and Alec should stay. The Internet won’t be happy.” 

“Don’t worry,” says Eames. “I’ll tweet a picture of Arthur’s arse, it’ll distract all of them.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes.


	124. Chapter 124

“Where has everyone been?” Alec demands suspiciously, when Arthur and Eames finally show up at makeup. 

“Having sex,” Eames answers shortly. 

Alec narrows his eyes and says, “I don’t know whether to believe you or not.” 

“You should believe me,” says Eames. “We have a lot of sex. A lot a lot.” 

Alec frowns harder and stomps away. 

“He got a new hat,” Arthur remarks, sitting in Julia’s chair first. “Do you think he has a whole supply of them?” 

“He’s got an entire hat closet,” says Eames, sprawling on the couch and scrolling on his phone. 

Arthur and Julia both look at him. 

“I’m not joking,” says Eames. “I’ve seen it.” 

“I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for your relationship with him,” Julia remarks.

“Wasn’t a relationship,” says Eames. 

“So,” Julia says. “Should we keep talking about Eames’s sex life, or should we move on?” 

“We should definitely move on,” Arthur says fervently. 

“I got a call,” Julia says. 

“From who?” asks Arthur. 

“Wait, let me guess,” says Eames. “It was Sebastian Stan.” 

“No,” says Julia, “it wasn’t Sebastian Stan, because you guys prefer to keep pretending you don’t know Sebastian Stan.”

“We don’t,” inserts Arthur, even though he knows it’s going to be useless.

Julia keeps talking like he hadn’t spoken. “The person you gave my number to was some guy named Paul. Which I don’t think is a pseudonym for Sebastian Stan. And he called.” 

“Paul called?” Eames says brightly. “That’s fantastic! What did you think? Did you like him? Are we the best matchmakers ever? I mean, obviously we are, but go ahead, I’d like to hear you confirm it.” 

“Eames, we talked for, like, two minutes. And set up a date. Tonight.” 

“This is excellent. Isn’t this excellent, darling?” 

Arthur can’t really move since Julia is applying his makeup so he looks at Eames from the corner of his eye, and from what he can see Eames is practically bouncing with excitement. 

Eames says, “You should text us throughout dinner with updates.” 

“I think she should probably pay attention to her date,” Arthur says. 

“Why? Dates are thoroughly overrated. Just take him to bed.” 

“Eames,” says Arthur. 

“We never went on a single date, and look how we turned out.” 

“We had a lot of dates. We just called them ‘filming for _Love It or List It_ ,’” says Arthur. 

“Fair point,” Eames agrees. 

“Don’t text us during your date,” Arthur tells Julia. 

“But ring us right after,” adds Eames. 

Julia looks amused by the two of them. “God, I hope I like him. I mean, I hope I like him because I’d like to meet someone nice but I also hope I like him because I don’t know what I’m going to do with the two of you if I don’t.” 

“He’s nice,” Arthur promises her. “He really is. I hope you two click.” 

“I hope it’s love at first sight,” says Eames. 

“I love that you think there’s such a thing,” says Julia fondly. 

“There is,” insists Eames. “I fell in love with Arthur at first sight.” 

“Did you really?” Julia asks, looking surprised. 

Arthur catches Eames nodding in his peripheral vision. “I looked at him and I knew, right then, there would never be anyone else for me.”

“Aww.” Julia smiles at Arthur. “Isn’t that sweet? Did you know that?” 

“Yes,” Arthur says, because he does know that story, Eames has told it to him many times. 

“Was it the same for you?” Julia asks. 

“No,” Arthur says, and he’s said this to Eames before many times, too. “I didn’t fall in love with him until the first time I saw one of his designs. But it was love at first sight of his designs.” 

“Aww, you two,” says Julia. “I hope someday Paul and I are as sickening as you two.” 

“Hear, hear,” says Eames. 

Arthur says in alarm, “Are we that sickening?” 

Julia grins at him. “No. You’re fine. Relax.” 

“Thank you, Julia,” Eames says, sounding relieved. 

Which gives Arthur even more pause than being told they’re sickening. Because clearly Eames is relieved that Julia denied they were sickening and saved them from what Eames had just called a panic spiral. Arthur thinks of how frequently Eames has to deal with panic spirals. 

Arthur thinks of how frequently Eames has to deal with him, period. Eames who always jovially and good-naturedly and patiently explains how much he loves him every time Arthur panics about it. 

Right now, Arthur’s main thought is that Eames is the one with the pet names and the public displays of affection and generally speaking Arthur should be more sickening when it comes to Eames.


	125. Chapter 125

Alec says grandly to everyone, “This is the penultimate time when we shall assemble to announce a challenge. Penultimate meaning second to last.” 

_Penultimate time I will have to listen to an Alec speech_ , thinks Arthur. _Penultimate meaning second to last._

“And I know it saddens all of us,” Alec continues, “to be reaching the end of this remarkable journey. But—”

“Don’t you want to save it for the live broadcast, Alec?” asks Eames. 

“Of course, of course,” Alec says. “Excellent point. Eames makes an excellent point. Let’s not forget about that fabulous live finale we have to look forward to! Aren’t we all looking forward to it?” 

The contestants don’t look in the mood. Arthur wonders if they expected some sort of acknowledgment of the awkward situation the show was in, but he wants to say that they clearly don’t know Alec if they thought he was ever going to acknowledge reality. Arthur is fairly sure Alec lives entirely in his own head. And apparently, unlike Arthur’s over-anxious, fretful, dubious head, Alec’s head is a place of ignorant Technicolor cheerfulness at all times. 

Eames says heartily, “None of us can wait, I assure you. Let’s read the challenge.” 

Alec has commandeered challenge-reading duty. Mostly because he announced loudly that he was doing it and Arthur didn’t feel like fighting over it and apparently neither did Eames. Alec says, “Yes. This _penultimate_ challenge is a truly important one. It’s very simple, but that is not to deceive you. Sometimes it is the simplest things that can touch you the most. _Here_.” Alec presses a hand over his heart. 

Arthur wonders if Alec is ever touched anywhere but over his heart. Then remembers that Eames has done some of that non-heart touching. Arthur thinks how the entire idea of that is never going to get any less _incredibly strange_ to contemplate. 

Alec is now saying something about greeting cards. Arthur thinks of Saito’s e-mail waiting for them at home, of the contract that needs to be signed, of life after this show. 

Finally, Alec says, “So, keep all of that in mind as you tackle this week’s challenge.” 

There is a moment of silence. 

Eames says, “Which is?” 

“What?” says Alec. 

“You never read the actual challenge, Alec,” Eames points out. 

“Oh! You’re right! Silly me!” Alec does his overenthusiastic fake laugh thing. 

_Life after this show_ , Arthur thinks. That trip to the Virgin Islands with Eames. Sprawling on the sand while Eames splashes in the ocean; having a massage on the beach; fucking in some luxurious bed while waves crash outside and sea breezes drift over them. Saying _yes_ when Eames says _Let’s get married_ and not having any cloud hanging over it, knowing that they’ve made this decision, mutually, entirely because they love each other. 

He thinks of the proposal, how much effort Eames has surely already put into it, how really very high-maintenance he is to have forced Eames into all this work. 

Alec reads off the envelope, “Paint a room.” 

The contestants, with their challenge finally given, start murmuring amongst themselves. Alec shifts out of his careful position and goes off to talk to Yusuf. 

“Three words,” Eames complains. “Took him twenty bloody minutes.” 

“I know,” Arthur says absently. “I need to talk to Ariadne for a second.” 

“Oh, good,” Eames says brightly. “I have mysterious things to do, too.” He waggles his eyebrows at Arthur before darting away. 

Arthur shakes his head and wonders what Eames is up to. Then he catches Ariadne before she can leave. “Listen,” he says. “I’ve got a favor I wanted to ask.”


	126. Chapter 126

“We need to stop at a liquor store,” Eames tells the driver. 

“For what?” Arthur asks. 

“Champagne, darling. You can’t sign a contract without champagne.” 

“Lots of people every day manage to sign contracts without champagne.” 

“Not us,” Eames says firmly. “This is something to celebrate. We’re going to celebrate.” 

Arthur is inclined to agree. He’s nervous, because it’s so much different, all at once, and he hopes it’s the right thing. But he’s also not nervous, because for the first time since starting this television thing, he feels like he’s the one in control of it, and he always feels better when he’s in control. 

So they go to a liquor store. Eames runs in and comes back with a bottle of Moet. 

“I asked for the best bottle they had in the place,” he explains. 

“I approve,” Arthur says, because he does. 

When they get home, Eames says, “Go and print the contracts for us to sign and bring them back out to the kitchen.” 

Arthur feels like he’s being sent away but he lets Eames do it, obediently printing the contracts and then killing a little more time for Eames’s benefit. 

There’s an e-mail back from Eames’s parents’ pub. _ARTHUR – We are so excited to meet your mum!!! Baby pictures PACKED. xxxxxxx._

Eames shouts to him, “Darling?” 

“Coming,” Arthur says, and closes his e-mail.

When he gets to the kitchen, there are glasses of champagne poured out on the counter, and Eames is looking curiously at a Bonsai weeping willow tree also on the counter. 

“Look at this mysterious delivery we just received,” remarks Eames. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would you?” 

Arthur smiles. “Happy contract signing.” 

“You sneak,” Eames accuses good-naturedly. “You stole my thunder.” 

“What thunder?” 

There’s a knock on the door. “That thunder,” Eames says. “Go open it.” 

Arthur cocks an eyebrow at him and opens the door to Giacomo, standing there with a suit bag and a wide smile. 

Arthur says, “Is it the metallic knit?” 

Giacomo grins. “Mr. Eames said it was a special occasion.” 

“Yes,” Arthur smiles. “It is. Thank you. We’re celebrating, would you like some champagne?” 

“I don’t wish to intrude,” Giacomo replies, still grinning widely. “Enjoy your special occasion!” 

Arthur steps back into the house with his new suit and looks at Eames. 

“Happy contract signing,” says Eames, looking pleased with himself. 

“Thank you,” Arthur says. 

“I love my new tree,” Eames says. 

“The start of an indoor forest. I love my new suit.” 

“Oh, that’s just me objectifying you. Shall we sign our contracts?” 

“Let’s.” 

Arthur sets out the paperwork and finds them blue pens and Arthur signs carefully and Eames signs with his usual negligent flourish. 

When the last signature is affixed, Arthur steps back and regards them and says, “Well. That’s it.”

“Still time to burn them and pretend this never happened,” Eames says. 

Arthur considers, because he knows Eames said that for his benefit. He says, “I don’t want to.” He looks at Eames. “Do you?” 

Eames shakes his head and hands Arthur his champagne and says, “Here’s to the rest of our lives, darling.” 

Arthur tips his glass against Eames’s. “Cheers,” he says, and they drink. 

Then Arthur puts his glass down and says definitively, “I’m going to go scan these to Saito.” 

“Let’s do this,” Eames agrees. 

Arthur takes the contracts to his office and scans them off to Saito. 

Eames leans against his doorjamb, their champagne flutes in hand, and watches. 

When he’s done, he walks over and retrieves his champagne. 

Eames says, “Happy?” 

Arthur says, “Yes. Not that I wasn’t happy before. But yes. Are you?” 

“Fucking chuffed,” Eames tells him, and kisses his eyebrow.


	127. Chapter 127

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to melinyel for coming up with JuPaul!

Eames is watching something terrible on television. Arthur is deciding on the best photos to upload for a new listing. This takes skill and thought. A lot of real estate agents just throw any old photo up there. Those are bad real estate agents. Arthur is a Very Good Real Estate Agent. 

Because he is involved in his job and also purposely shutting out whatever horrible, shrill reality show Eames is devouring (along with microwave popcorn), Eames has to shake him to get his attention. 

“Darling, darling, _darling_ ,” he exclaims at him, shoving his ringing phone in his face. 

“What?” Arthur asks, bewildered. “What is it? What’s the matter?” 

“It’s _Julia_ ,” says Eames, and answers the phone on speaker. 

“You are fucking alarming with this matchmaking thing,” Arthur informs him in a low voice. 

Eames ignores him, shouting heartily at the phone, “Julia! Beautiful, stunning, witty, intelligent Julia!” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at Eames. 

“How did the date go?” shouts Eames. 

“Why do you always shout at the speakerphone?” asks Arthur, keeping his voice to a murmur. 

Julia says, “Am I on speaker?” 

“He wants me to hear, too,” Arthur pipes up. “Hello, Julia.” 

“Hello, Arthur.” 

“Tell us how it went,” Eames says. “Did you take him home to shag him?” 

“No.” 

“Did he take you home to shag you?” persists Eames. 

“Eames. I am not that kind of girl.”

“Miss Southern Bacon notwithstanding,” says Eames. 

“Can you let her speak?” asks Arthur, in fond exasperation. 

“It pains me to tell you two this,” says Julia. She pauses for a beat during which Arthur can feel Eames dying of suspense. Arthur thinks they should start up a drumroll or something. And then Julia says, “He’s really nice!” She sounds pleasantly surprised by this. 

Eames thumps Arthur on the shoulder in what Arthur assumes is meant as congratulatory glee. “We told you! Didn’t we tell you?” 

“I know. You two are going to be insufferable.” 

“Just Eames,” Arthur says. 

“True. Just Eames. Never you, my all-vowel-and-a-th-sound friend,” says Julia. 

“Did you talk about how good he is with his hands?” asks Eames. 

“No,” answers Julia, “because we managed to have a conversation that was not entirely composed of double entendres.” 

“Wow,” comments Arthur. “What’s _that_ like?”

“Hilarious,” Eames says, and kisses his left dimple. 

“He did talk about working with you, Eames. He has a lot of really great stories about you.” 

“Huh,” says Eames. 

“Seriously. He’s really very funny on the topic of you.” 

Eames is looking full-fledged alarmed now. He says, “I’m not sure I entirely thought this match-making scheme through.” 

Julia chuckles. “Relax, he loves you, that much is clear. But he knows you’re crazy. Which is good. You’re great, Eames, but I was really worried you’d be trying to set me up with someone just like you, and you’re insane. I mean, no offense, Arthur, but you know what I mean.” 

“I know what you mean,” Arthur agrees drily, clicking through some more photos on his laptop. 

“I don’t know what either one of you is talking about,” says Eames loftily. 

“Anyway, he’s nice and normal and we’re going on a second date.” 

“This is excellent,” Eames proclaims. 

“I thought you were worried that you hadn’t thought this through?” asks Julia, sounding amused. 

“I was joking. You are two of my favorite people in the world and I am thrilled that I can get credit for making you happy.” 

“We,” Arthur corrects him. “ _We_ can get credit.” 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Julia says. “It’s not like I’m planning a wedding or anything.” 

“Love at first sight, Julia,” says Eames. “It exists if you are open to the possibility.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m still not sure about our couple name,” responds Julia. 

“Oh!” says Eames. “I had an idea about that? Brace yourself now. Are you ready?” 

“I’m ready.” 

“Not Bacaul,” murmurs Arthur. 

Eames shakes his head and announces dramatically, “JuPaul.” 

There’s a moment of silence. 

Arthur says, “Vaguely offensive.”

"To RuPaul?" asks Eames. 

"To Jewish people, kind of," says Arthur. 

“But the RuPaul reference wins you points,” says Julia.


	128. Chapter 128

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My schedule's going to be wonky tonight because I had a work meeting get scheduled. Add to the academia AU list: AU where you volunteer for some committee and meet the love of you life. Totally going to happen, right?

Saito sends them a promotional schedule. Arthur reads through it three times before he prints it and brings it to Eames. 

Eames is, uncharacteristically, in his office. He is sitting on his desk frowning at the drifts of detritus all around him. 

He brightens when he sees Arthur. “Oh, good. Have you come to save me from the prospect of cleaning all of this?” 

Arthur lifts a dubious eyebrow. “You were going to clean all of this? Really?” 

“Of course. I clean it every so often.” 

“When you say ‘clean,’ do you mean ‘sit and stare at it and will it to look neater’?” 

Eames laughs. “I talked to Paul about Julia.” 

“Oh? And what did he say?” 

Eames hops off the desk and wades his way over to Arthur. “That he likes her and I’m to stop prying or he will stop talking to me altogether. Which is clearly a hollow threat. Now what are you up to, my dashing, handsome, well-dressed man?” He backs Arthur out of the room and against the wall of the hallway outside, nosing behind his ear. 

“‘Man’?” echoes Arthur. “That was the best noun you could come up with for me?” 

“Hmm,” Eames considers, nipping at his earlobe. “Studmuffin? Love monkey?” 

“Okay, we’ll stick with ‘man,’” says Arthur, and wraps his arms around Eames to keep him in place.

“Oh,” says Eames, sounding surprised, and hugs him back. “You okay?” 

“We’re still going away, right? To the Virgin Islands? After the finale?” Arthur’s voice is muffled against Eames. 

“Yeah. Of course. We’re going to have a holiday. Didn’t I promise?” 

“I can’t wait,” Arthur says fervently. 

“Me, too. What brought this on?” 

“Promo schedule, leading up to the finale. The network wants us to tease a big announcement during the finale.” 

“Which will be the new show?” Eames asks. 

Arthur nods. 

“The promo is joint, right?” says Eames. 

Arthur wriggles a little bit of space between them so he can show Eames the print-out of the schedule. 

Eames glances over it. “It’s not bad,” he says. “This is doable. All New York or Boston or no travel at all, all of the two of us together.” 

“Ellen better not say I’m a dick again in our segment,” grumbles Arthur. 

“Ellen never said that. That all happened in your hard-on-yourself-Arthur-voice that we don’t listen to, remember?”

“She said that you were the friendly one. That makes me the dick.” 

“And the way I interpreted it by ‘friendly’ she meant ‘sleazy’ and you were the sincere one everyone could trust.” 

“What are you talking about?” Arthur asks. “That’s not how it happened at all.” 

“Because we both have hard-on-ourselves voices that we’re not supposed to be listening to, hmm?”

Arthur is willing to admit that maybe he’s overreacting to the Ellen appearance. Of course, the Ellen appearance happened when he was in generally a bad place in his life, what with pining after Eames in what he thought would be a hopeless fashion. 

Arthur says abruptly, “I’m tired all of a sudden. I mean, I’m still happy about the new show, I’m not regretting it, I’m just tired. I want to go away with you and just have it be us for a little while.” It’s been tugging at him, this desire for a break, but looking at the promotional schedule had made it crash over him in a wave. He’s just _tired_. And he’s so close to being done now that he can taste it. 

“I think you’re having an adrenaline crash,” Eames says, and pulls him in against him and kisses the top of his head. “You handled all of the contract stuff for the new show, and I let you, mostly because I knew you would feel better if you had control over it, but it was a lot and it was stressful and now you’ve done all that you can do and you’re crashing. Do you want me to cancel my parents coming? I won’t blame it on you at all, if you’re worried—”

“No, I want them to come. I want to do all of this. I’m just having a moment here and I’m letting you be a good resting-place for this moment.” 

“Well, I approve of that,” says Eames, after a second. Then, “We’ve only got four more filming days of this show, total, and then we’re gone, we’ve got a nice, well-deserved break. I am going to make you sleep for two straight days, and then the rest of the time I’m never going to even let you get dressed. Not entirely for sex reasons. Because you just need some time completely off. From everything.” 

Arthur breathes. What Eames is saying makes sense. The contract negotiations were taking up a furious amount of nervous energy in his brain. Now that it’s settled and their future is assured, it makes sense that he’s feeling sapped, suffering from a sort of emotional and intellectual exhaustion. “I want to lay in the sun,” he says after a moment. 

“That’s allowed,” Eames says. 

“I can’t lay in the sun naked. Unless we’re staying on a nude beach. And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. People will just be ogling you all day.” 

“What if I said I’ve got us a villa with a private pool area?” 

“I would say that I always love you but sometimes I just love you _more_ , you know?” 

Eames chuckles. “You can lay in all the sun you want. I’ll read you sexy fanfiction. I’ll even feed you grapes.” 

“Fuck the grapes,” Arthur says. “If we’re going on vacation, I want pina coladas and lots of ice cream.” 

Eames’s chuckle rounds out into a laugh. “I love holiday Arthur.” 

“Fucking A,” mumbles Arthur.


	129. Chapter 129

“So,” says Eames, as the car takes them to film the promo that’s going to run up to the finale. The network is clearly pushing the finale hard. 

“So,” replies Arthur absently, re-reading the truly terrible script the network has sent over. 

“I said I talked to Paul.” 

“About his date with Julia.” 

“That, too.” 

“Too?” Arthur looks up, interested now. 

“By the way, when Paul said it went well, he said we were right and she’s gorgeous, and he said it like he’s surprised that we would know a gorgeous woman.” 

“Maybe he’s just surprised that we know when a female is gorgeous.” 

“You know, even if we were both entirely one-hundred-percent homosexual, that wouldn’t make us _blind_.” 

“What else did you talk to Paul about?” Arthur asks patiently. 

“The show. Our show. Him being on it.” 

“What did he say?” 

“He’s open to it. He’s used to filming stuff anyway and I think he’s relieved by the fact that we’d be so in control of it. We’re probably going to have to talk to the network about all this stuff but I e-mailed Saito and he said we could hold off until after we get back from our holiday.” 

“You e-mailed Saito?” Arthur asks, surprised. 

“Just to ask if we could put things off a bit.”

Arthur studies him closely. “I’m fine, you know.” 

“I know.” 

“If this is about that little moment I had, it was just this brief moment of temporary tiredness. I’m fine.” 

“Darling, I know. But I still think we should hire a PA.” 

“I know, I have to start worrying about the assistant thing, but if Saito said we could hold off until after our vacation, then—”

“No. Not that. A PA. For us. To handle all of the little things.” 

“The little things?” Arthur echoes. 

“The little details of being Arthur and Eames.” 

“A _personal assistant_ ,” Arthur clarifies. “You want us to hire a personal assistant? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” says Eames, sounding unperturbed. 

“To…what? Pick up our fucking dry cleaning? Like we’re the fucking Kings of England or something?” 

“To pick up the dry cleaning, yes,” Eames responds calmly. “And worry about where our next meals are coming from and whether there’s food in our fridge. And respond to fan mail and make sure the bills get paid and—”

“Okay, you’re acting like I had a nervous breakdown,” says Arthur hotly, because he’s annoyed and offended. “I was tired for a second and I went and told you because you are my _boyfriend_ and I thought that was _allowed_ but I’m sorry, I won’t bother you with that again—”

“Hey,” Eames interrupts sharply. “Stop it.” 

“This is you coddling me,” Arthur accuses. 

“This is me coddling _us_ ,” Eames corrects. “Darling, we are going to get busier than we have ever been before in our lives. You took one look at the promo schedule and you knew that. And that’s nothing, that’s just the trial run. We’re getting really well paid to do this stuff, so why don’t we pay someone else to do all of the other stuff we don’t have time to do anymore?” 

Arthur stares at him for a second. Then he said, “This is what I didn’t want.” 

“What?” Eames asks. 

“I didn’t want anything to _change_.” 

“Darling, if you didn’t want anything to change, then you should have re-signed for _Love It or List It_ ,” Eames points out dryly. 

“But I didn’t like _Love It or List It_ ,” Arthur complains. He knows he’s whining and he can’t help it. “I was so sick of dealing with all of those fucking unpleasant people. I was tired of having to do my job incompetently in order to build up the drama of it. And I hated working against you, I hated being at odds with you. I didn’t want to re-sign for _Love It or List It_. I wanted us to get to be us, on a different show.”

“And what about hiring a PA would make us not us?” inquires Eames. 

Arthur doesn’t know. Other than a vague panicked sense that his life is getting so big he doesn’t recognize it. He says petulantly, “I like our dry cleaner. I like going there. They always tell me what their favorite recent outfit of mine was.” 

“Darling,” says Eames, sounding amused, and then he puts a hand on the back of Arthur’s neck and pulls him in. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Arthur warns him. 

“I’m not. Let’s hire a PA to deal with the groceries, and you can still deal with the dry cleaning. How’s that?” 

Arthur considers. 

“Probably the PA would make sure we have lots of fruits and vegetables,” remarks Eames. 

Arthur has to admit that it would be lovely to spend less time thinking about their diets. 

“And he or she could also help with watering your plant wall,” continues Eames. “Once we get it installed.” 

Also useful, thinks Arthur, because otherwise he’s just going to kill all those poor plants. 

“You think about it,” Eames says. “Take your processing time. We’ll talk about it more tonight. Now smile for me. We need those dimples in these promos.” 

“Don’t patronize,” Arthur says, but he knows he’s dimpling a bit because Eames presses a finger against the indentation. “Did you study your part?” 

“Darling, I’m not talking from a script,” Eames says, sounding appalled. 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur.

“When have we ever been scripted? You cannot script _this_.” He waves a hand between them. “We are spontaneous magic, darling. We are a formula not to be messed with.” 

“Well, I studied the script,” Arthur says primly. 

“I’ll adlib,” Eames shrugs.


	130. Chapter 130

They’re alone when they get to the studio and this gives Arthur pause. 

“Alec isn’t here?” he asks the cameraman. Not Yusuf. Someone he doesn’t know. 

The cameraman gives him a weird look and says, “No?” as if it’s obvious and Arthur shouldn’t be asking the question. 

Arthur takes out his promo schedule again and looks at it. Alec isn’t mentioned, but he’d assumed that was because it was a schedule for him and Eames. But maybe Alec isn’t doing any promotion with them. Which just made everything about the schedule a million times better. 

Eames arrives back from makeup and says, “What do the contracts say about the staffing on the show? Like, makeup people?” 

“We hire together,” Arthur replies, because he knows this contract by heart now. 

“Can we have Julia? This makeup person was incredibly dull and she criticized me for not using enough moisturizer.” 

“You don’t use enough moisturizer,” Arthur says. 

“Not the point,” Eames tells him. 

“We’ll ask Julia,” Arthur says, because he’d prefer Julia, too. “But we’d better hope things keep going well with her and Paul, or else it’ll be awkward.” 

“Darling, do not doubt our combined matchmaking prowess,” Eames says seriously. 

“Do you think that Alec isn’t doing any promos with us?” Arthur asks. 

“Oh,” Eames says. “I hadn’t thought about it, but wouldn’t that be lovely?” 

“Hi,” says a woman coming up to them. “I’m Kalinda.” She says it cheerfully and bouncily and energetically, holding out a hand. “I’m directing you guys today, but it’s just, you know, a couple of lines into the camera.” 

“We should be out of here in no time,” Eames agrees, doing one of his gallant kisses over Kalinda’s hand. 

Kalinda says, “Don’t think I haven’t been warned about you. They told me to expect to be here several hours. I said, ‘It’s a fifteen-second promo thing,’ and they said, ‘You don’t know Eames.’”

“Slander or libel or something,” says Eames. “Who told you these scurrilous lies?” 

Kalinda just grins and says to Arthur, “Nice suit.” 

“Thanks,” Arthur says. 

“Okay, let’s get started.” 

It’s just the two of them, up against a plain white backdrop. Pretty boring, really. 

Eames says, “I don’t know about this one. As if we’re not always done in a jiffy when I’m involved in a filming.” 

Arthur says, “I like her.” 

“Because she complimented your suit.” 

Arthur shrugs. “I’m easy, what can I say?” 

“You weren’t easy when I was pursuing you,” Eames grumbles. 

“Yes, I was,” Arthur reminds him, lightly but he does like to make sure Eames doesn’t rewrite that particular bit of history because, well, he _was_ easy for Eames, Eames was the one who made it hard. 

“Right,” says Eames. “Yes. You’re right. But I am very good at promos.” 

“You didn’t look at the script,” Arthur reminds him. 

“I never look at the script. I’m going to adlib. I’m good at adlibbing. And what’s there to remember? I know the relevant information.” 

“Are you boys ready?” Kalinda calls to them. 

“As we will ever be,” murmurs Arthur. 

Eames scowls at him a bit and calls back to her, “Whenever you are!” 

“Action!” calls Kalinda, very dramatically. 

Arthur looks at the camera and smiles and delivers his line. “If there’s one thing Eames and I know, it’s big things.” 

Eames doesn’t deliver his line. Not just because Eames doesn’t know his line. When Arthur looks at him, he’s staring at him in horror. 

“ _That’s_ your line?” he says. 

“Cut!” shouts Kalinda. 

“No, really,” Eames says. “That’s the line the network wrote for you?”

“That’s the line,” Arthur says. 

“That is a terrible line.” 

“It is. It’s fucking awful. But our job isn’t to—”

“Kalinda,” Eames says, “roll the tape again, we’re good.” 

“What are you doing?” Arthur hisses. 

“Let me go first,” Eames says. 

Kalinda cries out, “Action!” 

Eames curves a smile at the camera. It’s such a fucking over-the-top sex-drenched smile that Arthur feels like porn music should be starting up in the background. Eames purrs, “Let me tell you why you should watch _Next Big Thing_ ’s live finale.” And then he kind of ducks his head a little and catches his lower lip in his teeth and _unbuttons the top button of his shirt_. 

Arthur’s jaw drops open and he makes a strangled sound. Eames parts the shirt and winks at the camera and Arthur shouts, “Cut!” 

“Cut?” Eames says to him. “We were just getting to the good part.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Arthur says. “You can’t do that for the promo.” 

“That is going to get viewers. Kalinda, is that going to get viewers?” 

“On Cinemax,” Kalinda calls. 

“This is why people think we have a sex club. You realize that, right?” 

Eames turns back to the camera. “Sebastian Stan, if you’re watching this, call us.” He waggles his thumb and pinkie finger next to his face like it’s a phone. 

“What are you doing?” asks Arthur dazedly. “Stop it. Are we still rolling? Is that being filmed?” 

“We’re still rolling,” Kalinda confirms. 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur again. 

“Go ahead, darling, say your line, I’m going to take this seriously now,” says Eames. 

“Button that button,” says Arthur. 

“Darling,” says Eames, and gestures to the chest hair he’s made visible. “This is important.” 

Arthur says in Kalinda’s direction, “I date this man. I have no excuse. I’m sorry.” 

“Say your line, darling,” Eames says, sounding amused. 

Arthur looks into the camera and clears his throat and composes himself and opens his mouth. And says, “I can’t remember my line. What’s my line?” 

Eames moves in close suddenly, grinning for the camera, his hand catching behind Arthur’s back, finger through one of the belt loops back there. Arthur thinks of the promo they did at the beginning, before the show really started, when Arthur first met Alec, when he’d been off-balance and uncomfortable and uncertain, when Eames had slipped a finger into his belt loop and Arthur had been so stiff and annoyed. And Arthur really can’t believe how far they’ve come. He thought he had this amazing, perfect life before he’d shown up for the promo that day, and now he’s got something so impossibly _better_ that he doesn’t stop Eames. Eames tugs him in against him and he goes, loose and easy. 

Eames says to the camera, “We’re Eames and Arthur, and you should watch the _Next Big Thing_ live finale. Tell them why, darling.” 

Arthur suddenly remembers his line. “Because Eames and I know big things.” It’s so ridiculous he can’t say it with a straight face. It is such a fucking awful line, who _writes_ these things? So he adds, “You should watch and find out what those big things are.” 

“Also Arthur will wear a really nice suit,” adds Eames, and then he kisses the dimple that Arthur knows is evident, because he’s smiling, then he’s laughing, then he turns and brushes a kiss over the tip of Eames’s nose because he’s feeling so impossibly fond he can’t deal with it. 

“Well done,” Eames says, still grinning, and kisses his nose in return. 

“Yeah, you’re ridiculous, get off me,” Arthur says, although he can’t help that he’s still grinning back, that he doesn’t step away from Eames. 

Eames winks at him and does step away, dropping his hand from Arthur’s belt loop. 

Arthur says to Kalinda, “Sorry about that. We’ve got it out of our systems now. We’ll do it for real this time.” 

“No,” says Kalinda. “We’ve definitely got it, you’re good.”


	131. Chapter 131

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw: 
> 
> (1) There was no awesome meet-cute at the committee meeting last night. WHATEVER, COMMITTEE MEETING.
> 
> (2) Probably I was very influenced last chapter by that photograph of Tom Hardy we've been reblogging constantly on Tumblr, but I admit I'm very influenced by all photos of Tom Hardy and why THEY ALL LOOK VAGUELY LIKE PORN.

“So,” says Arthur, as Eames leans over and steals a piece of sweet-and-sour chicken from him. Arthur is sitting at their breakfast bar, like a normal person. Eames is sitting on the counter because Eames never sits like a normal person if he can help it. 

Eames says, “Uh-huh.”

Arthur takes a deep breath. “The PA thing.” 

Eames looks at him as he chews and doesn’t say anything. The gaze is even and non-judgmental, and Arthur loves him for that. 

He says, “Yes. Okay. It’s a good idea. You’re right.” 

“You’re sure?” Eames says. “Because if you don’t want to, we’ll—”

“No, you want one because we’re going to be busy and you don’t want us to drown in our obligations and forget about each other and I’ve been worried about that all along. You’re right. Something has to give, and it can’t be us. I’ve never wanted it to be us. I’ve been consistently terrified of it being us.” 

“It’s not going to be us,” Eames says. 

“Right. But at a certain point if I’m running around showing houses all day and coming home to spend the rest of the day dealing with all of the rest of our lives, including our contracts and our engagements, you’re right, I’ll never have time to keep cleaning and doing the laundry, not if I want to still see you.” 

“I don’t mean to make it sound like I think you’ll neglect me. I think we both could use some help. He or she would be a joint PA.” 

“Yeah, but you’d be delighted to relinquish responsibility for all of that stuff. I’m the one that has freakish control issues about other people vacuuming our bedroom carpet.” 

“We won’t leave the really freaky sex stuff out. But we’ll leave out the more vanilla stuff, because we do have to maintain some reputation, darling.” 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. 

“I know you’re being serious.” Eames brushes his hand through Arthur’s hair, tugging through the gel he’d used for the promo that day. “It’s not a freakish control issue. It’s just you, just who you are, and you’re lovely, but I don’t want you to make yourself crazy trying to do everything.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and goes back to his sweet-and-sour chicken as if this is all minor and not at all momentous. “It makes sense. I’m okay with it.” 

Eames is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Okay,” in a tone of voice that says he’s not quite sure but he’s going to let Arthur deflect. 

His leg is right there so Arthur leans his head against it. He doesn’t normally do things like that but Eames appreciates physical gestures like that, prefers them to all the talking. It’s why Eames babbles endlessly: words are cheap and easy to Eames, it’s all the rest of it that _means_ things. And Arthur was short with Eames earlier when Eames was just trying to help and this more than _I’m sorry_ , it’s better. 

Eames leans down and kisses Arthur’s head. “We’re good, darling,” he murmurs, which Arthur knows is him acknowledging recognition of Arthur’s gesture. 

Arthur looks across the kitchen at Eames’s willow tree Bonsai on the opposite shelf. “I think we’re already killing that poor tree.” 

Eames chuckles. “I haven’t decided where to put it yet. I think it mightn’t get enough light on our coffee table, unless we push the coffee table closer to the windows, which would mean I’d have to re-arrange all of the furniture.” 

Arthur straightens from Eames’s leg and resumes eating. “In that case, I’m surprised you haven’t already started.” 

Eames laughs and says, “Serious question time.” 

“Okay,” Arthur says. 

“Would you rather cut out your tongue or cut off your ears?” 

“Fuck,” says Arthur, “why are all of your questions like this so gruesome?” 

“Fine, you do one.” 

Arthur considers. “Would you rather live in the middle of nowhere with Internet or in the middle of a city but the Internet was never invented?” 

Eames stares at him. “Well, what kind of bloody choice is that? How am I supposed to decide?” 

“Oh, and the tongue and ears question was easy?” 

“Easier than _that_. Oh! I have the answer!”

“Eames, it’s not a test.” 

“Where do you live: the middle of nowhere, or the middle of the city?” 

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “I guess the city. But I don’t know.” 

“Then I’ll be in the city, too, because I’ll just be with you.” Eames beams at him like he’s solved an ancient puzzle or something. 

Arthur smiles and shakes his head at him and puts their leftover food away while Eames goes into the living room and shouts at him their options for entertainment. 

Arthur finally agrees to _EastEnders_ , because he doesn’t actually mind _EastEnders_ , he just can’t be devoted to it the way Eames is. 

Eames catches them up in a mini-marathon and makes small, breathless little exclamations over the plot twists. The little noises kill Arthur. He thinks Eames is the most adorable thing he’s ever encountered but he tries not to give that away so he curls up with his book and pretends he’s not paying attention at all. 

When they go to bed, he’s still thinking of the PA. Really, what happens is he steps over piles of Eames’s discarded clothing and that makes him think of the PA and he sighs and says, “What are we going to do when we have someone who’s not us clean our bedroom?” 

“Rejoice when it comes to my clothing,” says Eames from the bed, “and tell them not to go near any of your clothing. On penalty of death.”

“Not penalty of _death_ ,” says Arthur, turning off the light and crawling into bed with him. 

“Guillotine or firing squad,” says Eames. 

“Is this another of your gruesome questions?” asks Arthur. 

“I guess they have been gruesome tonight. Sorry. Here’s a better one: Would you rather have a pet dolphin or a pet otter?” 

“Neither,” Arthur says firmly. “We’re getting neither.” 

“I didn’t say we were getting one!” Eames protests, like Arthur can’t see through him like he’s a window Arthur’s just cleaned. 

“Can I tell you something?” Arthur hears himself say, and he doesn’t know why he says it, except that it’s been in his head all day, and now it’s dark and he can’t see Eames but he knows Eames is there and those are the best times for confessions. 

“If this is about how you’d rather have a pet pig, I am not against that.” 

“There was never enough money when I was a kid, right?” Arthur says. 

Eames falls abruptly silent. Arthur knows Eames already knows this, but he also knows he abruptly switched the tone on Eames and that Eames is feeling it out. 

“So,” Arthur goes on, “sometimes there were, like, whole days in a row when there was nothing in the cupboard but whatever canned soup or vegetable or whatever had been on sale. And I would…I would, I don’t know, I’d make that be dinner, because I didn’t want to…The point is, I took care of it, right? My mother was so busy trying to work so hard to give me everything I wanted and I thought the thing I could do was I could try to take care of everything else, so she wouldn’t have to worry. And I did. I was really good at it. And then I met you and I loved you and I thought, ‘Oh, excellent, I’ll take care of him, too.’ Because that’s what I do. And I’ve been good at that, too. I think. So when you said we should get a PA for a second it was this—like this—”

Eames kisses him hard, which is a relief because Arthur didn’t know how to articulate the rest of it. 

Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t try. “I just don’t even know how to recognize my life sometimes,” Arthur says. “I don’t know how I ended up here. Sometimes I think…is it all happening to someone else?”

“This is your life,” Eames says to him, his voice fierce in the darkness. “If you ever get lost in it, if you ever feel unmoored, find me, wherever I am, find me and I will remind you. This is your life. I’m right here.” 

Arthur closes his eyes and breathes and Eames’s knuckles brush up the side of his neck and the touch is terribly soothing. Arthur says, “I’m excited for everything that’s about to come, but I want you to know: I’ve been really happy. You make me really happy.” 

Eames presses a kiss to his cheek. Eames says, “Me, too.”


	132. Chapter 132

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of discussion of the logistics of the finale. The logistics of the mentoring are going to be worked into a later chapter. :-)

Julia tells Eames that he looks smug as she’s doing his makeup. 

“That’s just how I look!” he protests. 

“It’s true,” says Arthur. “He just looks smug most of the time.”

“Granted, it’s because most of the time I deserve to be smug about something. In this case: JuPaul.” 

“I’m telling you: don’t get ahead of yourself. We’ve got our second date tonight. Second date. That’s it. We’ll see.” 

“You’d better hurry up. I’ve got to send him to the Virgin Islands again next week and if you want to go along, you need to move quickly.” Eames winks at her. 

Julia shakes her head at him, laughing. 

Arthur watches them and thinks that this is nice. He wants their entire show to feel like this: like filming is just a matter of hanging out with their friends. Nothing about it is going to be fraught or formulaic or anxious. 

Through e-mails with Saito, they’ve confirmed that the work of putting the show together can wait until after they get back from vacation, so they’ve both agreed not to bring up anything with Julia. Not that Arthur thinks it would get complicated with Julia but he’s trying to clear as much from his headspace as he can so that he can really enjoy their vacation. Otherwise his brain will just keep whirring nervously in the background and he doesn’t want it to. 

When they’re done with makeup, Mal beckons them over to where she’s already standing with Alec. 

“Almost done,” she says, sounding relieved. Mal, Arthur thinks, already has one foot out the door and through MTV’s door. 

Alec says sadly, “Almost done,” as if this whole thing has been a fucking picnic and he’ll be sad to see it go. 

Arthur genuinely cannot wait until he can stop puzzling Alec out because Alec will be totally irrelevant to his life. 

“We have a lot to go over. This is just a normal episode: normal judging, normal voting. But then after this we’ve got a lot of work to do. Once this episode airs, we really need to start asking Twitter to submit questions to ask you guys during the finale.” 

“Are we going to see these questions beforehand?” asks Arthur.

“Probably not,” says Mal negligently. 

“I’d really rather see them beforehand,” says Arthur politely. 

“Arthur, we’re going to pick them live on the night,” Mal tells him. 

“No, you’re not. You’re going to have them picked in advance, or else you wouldn’t be asking for the questions now,” points out Arthur reasonably. 

“Fine,” Mal snaps. “I’ll try to send some of the ones we’re thinking about around. But we have much bigger problems. We’ve got two episodes to film in the space of one, now that they’ve decided to do the finale this way. What this means is you’ve got a lot of filming obligations coming up in the next week, in addition to the promotional obligations I know the network has given you. We’re going to do a regular challenge and judging for half of the finale, only in a shortened period of time. You’ll basically be there to sit on the stage and watch it being broadcast and make little comments. We’ll announce your eliminated contestant, have a bit of reaction, and then move on to the final three contestants. We’ll have a filmed challenge for them prior to the live episode so that they have time to work on it and then you’ll do the judging live.” 

“And we pick the winner?” asks Alec. 

“No,” Mal says. “Before we switched to the live idea, the plan was always to do Internet voting for the final episode. We’re still going to do it that way, only they’ll be voting for the last portion of the episode while we’re doing the live Q&A.” 

“So the contestants will just be sitting on the stage whilst the voting’s going on?” says Eames. 

It sounds like hell to Arthur, but Mal just nods confirmation. 

“So the only thing really live from our perspective is going to be the Q&A,” Eames clarifies. 

“Yes. And since I’m going to send you the questions ahead of time, even that won’t be all that live.” Mal gives Arthur a look as if he’s to blame for that. 

“Don’t worry,” Eames says. “I’m sure you’ll get all the unscripted drama you could ever wish for at MTV.” 

“I’m sure we’ve already had enough unscripted drama on this show to last us the rest of our television lives,” remarks Arthur. 

Alec says, “Really? I think it’s been a bit dull. Almost no one has cried.”


	133. Chapter 133

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, another poll for this one. If you've got an LJ, hop on over and vote for who should win this challenge! http://earlgreytea68.livejournal.com/502676.html

They start with Scott’s room. If Arthur had to hazard a guess before judging, he would have guessed that this challenge will eliminate Scott. He just doesn’t think the simple painting of a room is going to be in Scott’s wheelhouse. And the room is pretty enough, but it’s just a basic taupe color, striped between matte and glossy finishes. It’s classy but it doesn’t challenge anything about painting rooms. 

Alec says dismissively, “Stripes are over.” 

Eames says, “I still like stripes.” 

“But it’s not unique,” says Scott, heaving a little sigh. “I know. I was kind of lost on what to do.” 

“Probably because you’re actually more of a product designer than an interior decorator,” Eames says. 

“Right,” agrees Alec. “And this show is supposed to be to find the best _interior decorator_.” 

It isn’t really that Arthur disagrees with Alec’s sentiment, he just thinks that there’s no reason to be snarky about it right to Scott’s face like that. When Scott’s admitted that he knows it’s not his strong suit. Like, really, why didn’t Alec ever learn _manners_ somewhere? He’s such a bully that Arthur can’t stand it. 

Arthur says staunchly, “I like stripes and I like taupe.” 

Scott looks pleasantly surprised. “Oh. Thanks.” 

“But I think what you really should have done for this challenge,” Arthur continues, “is reimagine what ‘walls’ are in the first place.” 

Scott looks like Arthur just completely rocked his world. “Wow,” he says. 

Alec says, “What is that even supposed to mean?”

As if Alec always says things that make perfect sense. 

Arthur ignores him and moves them on to the next room. It turns out to be Sunny’s room, and she’s painted it in an off-white that’s very bright and cheerful and almost full white, and it’s contrasted with a bright green ribbon of color that she’s wrapped the room in. That’s the best description Arthur can come up with. It’s as if the entire room has been gift-wrapped. The strip of green, which is a few feet wide, sweeps along the floor under their feet, rises up onto both walls, and then curves over the ceiling, too. In the center of the ceiling, there’s a starburst design that’s where the bow would be if the room had been a gift. 

“We weren’t allowed to use anything that wasn’t flat against the wall,” Sunny explains, “but that’s where I think you would position your chandelier.” 

It’s a relatively simple idea but Arthur’s never seen it done before, and it’s delightful. He knows even before Eames speaks that Eames is going to love it, because it’s whimsical in that way Eames adores.

Eames says, “This is spectacular.” 

Sunny looks like she can’t believe he would say that. Her eyes widen and she says, “Wait, really? You really think so?” 

“Sunny, it’s brilliant,” Eames says. “It is bona fide brilliant. I’m sad I’ve never thought to do this. We might be repainting our house.” He looks at Arthur. “Do you like it?”

Arthur nods, because he does. He even likes the color scheme. The green and white makes Arthur think of the spring blossoming outside. This is what he would want in a room with a bunch of windows for you to fling open to the outdoors. 

Alec says, “Well. It’s somewhat clever. I’m not sure what it’s trying to _say_.” 

“It’s saying that every day is a gift,” says Sunny firmly, “and that you should treasure it.” 

Arthur smiles at her in delight and says, “I love that.” 

Eames winks at her. 

Alec fumes and they move on. 

The next room is Misty Rainbow’s, and Arthur wasn’t sure what to expect, but Misty Rainbow has already proven herself to be a painter, and the walls are covered in a mural. 

“It tells the story of a day,” she explains to them, “from midnight to sunrise to sunset.” 

Arthur can see that. One wall is black, thrown over with sparkles, and that clearly represents night. There is a moon tucked up in the corner, and a shimmer of moon-reflection at the bottom, which is what makes Arthur think it’s supposed to be the sea that they’re looking at. 

The next wall confirms it: a gentle rosy pink, with gray clouds wisping across it, and some seagulls wheeling through it. The ocean is a pale blue-gray at the bottom of the wall, with some pink reflected through it. 

The next wall is the bright blue of a clear afternoon. The ocean at the bottom of the wall looks inviting, with a few brief whitecaps showing, and a school of dolphins off in the corner. 

The final wall is fiery red-orange as the sun sets. There are clouds strewn through it, also painted in impressionistic orange-red swirls. The orange-red bleeds into the ocean, in a way that looks almost foreboding. It’s Misty Rainbow’s patented touch of calming with danger underneath. 

Eames says in approval, “You’re using the ocean like a chair rail through the room,” and once he points it out, Arthur focuses and realizes that the ocean does act as a bit of divider, showing up in the same place on every wall. “I like it,” Eames says. “It’s clever.” 

“It’s a bit…on-the-nose,” Alec says. 

Arthur doesn’t even know what that is supposed to _mean_. 

Misty Rainbow just says tranquilly, “Well, that’s me, right? What you see is what you get? Lacking depth or complexity?” 

Alec turns and leaves the room. 

The next room is Ariadne’s. It’s mainly a soft dove-gray but what saves it from being boring is that scattered throughout the room, sometimes at the top, sometimes the bottom, sometimes the middle, are clusters of jewel tones artistically arranged. 

Ariadne says, “I call this my peacock room.” 

There is something vaguely peacock-ian about it, so Arthur sees where the name has come from, but he’s mainly intrigued by the jewel tone clusters, and when he walks up to them he’s surprised to see that Ariadne has pasted a variety of things to them. There are little slivers of mirrors, little squares of colored glass, small bright feathers, puzzle pieces… It’s like Ariadne has taken every room that’s been designed during this whole competition and put them up on the wall. It’s like the walls are a distillation of the entire show. 

“Oh,” Arthur says, as he realizes this. 

“Do you like it?” Ariadne asks, sounding excited. 

Eames is studying his own collection of jewel tones on another wall. He lets out a surprised laugh. “It’s the whole show. You’ve told the tale of the entire show on your walls.” 

“In the embodiment of peacocks, which I thought very appropriate,” agrees Ariadne. 

“I don’t get it,” says Alec. 

***

Their very last room is Gon’s room. Gon says apologetically, “I really struggled with this room.” 

Arthur understands why, because he thinks Gon’s designs are much more grounded in the cohesive vision of an entire room than almost any other contestant in the competition. 

But Gon’s given it his best shot and the result is striking. Some of the room is pale gray (interesting, Arthur thinks, that he chose a base color similar to Ariadne’s), but he’s done two opposite accent walls in a diamond pattern, where some of the diamonds are gray but some are silver and some are beige and there are gold accents on some and a couple are mirrored. It would have been overwhelming for the whole room, so the accent wall choice was a good one, and Arthur likes it. It’s a little too busy for his personal taste, but he can tell Eames is drawn to it. 

“This is what you’d do a casino in,” Eames announces. “The diamond pattern makes me think of card suits, and there’s something about this that you could get lost in. Like a…head tangle.” Eames nods, like he approves of this new phrase he created. 

Alec is studying the accent walls along with the rest of them. He says, “Did you draw all of these by hand?” 

“Yeah,” Gon says, and ruefully squeezes his hand shut and then open again. “I’m not sure I’ll ever recover.” He laughs, to show it’s a joke. 

“That’s commitment,” Alec says, and it sounds like he respects that. 

Finally, thinks Arthur, a pleasant view out of Alec. 

“Let’s go judge,” Alec announces.


	134. Chapter 134

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Running late tonight, but here it is!

They don’t even bother to have any sort of debate about it. It’s like they’re all dragging with the end in sight and it would take too much effort to get all worked up about who should win and who should lose right now. Mal just hands out pieces of paper without even being asked and they rank their choices and Mal tallies. 

Somehow Arthur ends up with the job of announcing the winner and loser. He’d rather not have this job, especially not at this point, when he’s honestly fond of every contestant and hates to see any of them go. But he does really enjoy getting to crown Sunny the victor. She gets very emotional about it and hugs him multiple times and normally Arthur is weird about random hugs from random people but her hug seems so sweet and genuine that he can’t get worked up about it. Then she hugs Eames multiple times. And then back to Arthur. 

And then she scurries off without hugging Alec and no one even says anything. 

When he announces that Scott has been eliminated, no one seems surprised, not even Scott.

“The writing was on the wall there,” Scott says. “No pun intended.” 

“Oh,” says Eames, “but I love a good pun,” and shakes Scott’s hand and then pulls him aside for what seems like a serious discussion. Arthur hopes he’s talking about what Scott’s future plans are and what Eames can do to help him because Arthur thinks Scott has a real future. 

Ariadne comes bouncing up to Arthur and hisses, “So. I’ve got some great ideas and I think this is going to work.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, feeling guilty. “Listen. I don’t want to take time away that you guys need for what you’re doing in the competition. I didn’t think that through.” 

“Stop it, it’s not going to be that hard,” Ariadne says. “Everyone’s going to help. Everyone thinks it’s so sweet and cute.” 

Arthur knows he’s blushing and wishes he wasn’t. “It’s not that—”

“Stop,” Ariadne says, putting her hand up. “You don’t have a valid opinion anymore. We’ve already assembled all the materials. Honestly, it’s going to take us, like, a night’s work, and it’s the least we can do for you guys. I mean, you’ve both done so much, for all of us, and we’ve learned so much, and we were talking about trying to give back to you anyway, and this is perfect.” 

Arthur is so touched that he’s caught off-guard by a sudden inability to speak because he’s worried his voice will crack. He swallows thickly and just looks at Ariadne. 

Who looks like she thinks he’s an idiot and shakes her head at him fondly and says, “Arthur, you’re so silly sometimes, it’s a good thing you have me. So, as your guardian pixie sprite, stop worrying and feeling guilty about all of this and just let us work our magic. As long as we’ve got the approval from Mal.” 

Arthur clears his throat and ventures speaking. It goes well. “Yeah, she says it’s fine.” Actually Mal had said, _Oh, I don’t care, whatever_ , while waving her hand around when Arthur had cornered her while Eames was getting his makeup done. 

“Good. Then we’re good to go. We’ll probably get it done tomorrow, while we have this little break from the competition, and then we’ll lock it and make sure it stays hidden until you’re ready for it.” 

Arthur wishes he knew what to say. He wishes he was good at that the way Eames is. He’s not sure why all these people are helping him in this amazing, remarkable way when he doesn’t think they really have any reason to. He says, “Thanks,” and thinks that it sounds so incredibly inadequate that he’s embarrassed. 

Ariadne gives him the most brilliant smile, though, and says, “Seriously, Arthur. Like I said: Least we can do.” 

And then he says, because he really is the most ungrateful person on the entire planet, “Can you just make sure—”

“No cameras,” Ariadne grins at him. “Got it.” 

Eames comes up to them and says, “Hello, GPS. Well done with the peacock room, I liked it.” 

“Thanks,” says Ariadne, still grinning. “Got to run.” She darts away. 

Arthur may have chosen his confidante poorly because it’s possible that Ariadne is the worst secret-keeper in the whole world. 

Eames lifts an eyebrow at Arthur and says, “What’s all that about?” 

“Nothing,” Arthur says. 

“Hmm,” says Eames. 

“What were you talking to Scott about?” Arthur asks, to change the subject. 

Eames lets him. “Product design, and what I can do to get him started. I thought maybe we could use him a few times on the new show. He has incredible ideas and it would be excellent exposure for him. I didn’t say that to him, of course, because I know we’re keeping the new show under wraps, but, anyway, I’m bringing it up to you now.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Arthur says, because he loves Scott’s designs and would be happy to have him involved. 

“Yeah,” Eames says. “I was thinking actually of talking to you about Gon and Ariadne, too. If I’m going to need assistants, I think I’d rather have them than anyone else. And I can’t bring myself to pick one. I think they’re not quite ready for it individually, but together I think they’d be strong enough that I’d feel okay with them. And there’s the added bonus that you like them and wouldn’t mind having them around.” 

“Please don’t make hiring decisions based on who I like,” Arthur says, vaguely appalled. 

“I’m not. I like them, too. That’s my point, I guess: _We_ like them. I want going to work every day to be us going to work with people we like. It’s why I want Paul, and why I want Julia for makeup person. And I want Gon and Ariadne involved. And I want you to get an assistant that you really like. And we’ll pick a PA we really like, and we’ll find a director we really like, and, you know, this show has just been a lot of stress working with someone we don’t like, and honestly _Love It or List It_ with Cobb has never been the easiest show, and if we have enough control to fix that, I’d like to.” 

Arthur agrees with this outlook and had just been thinking that himself and is about to say just that when Alec, the person they don’t like who has made this show so stressful, comes bounding up to them, as if he wants to bold, italicize, and underline the wisdom of Eames’s proposal. “Good show, right?” he says to them. “Only one more week. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is all coming to an end. It feels like just yesterday that we were meeting for the first time, Artie.” Alec gives Arthur a very sincere, wide-eyed look. 

“I know,” replies Arthur. “But it was so long ago. Before my sex club really took off.” 

Alec looks uncertain. 

Eames says, sounding amused, “We’re on our way out,” and tugs Arthur out of the studio and into the car and then he makes out with him for a little while, until Arthur manages to mumble, “Wait, you’re embarrassing the driver.” 

“He’s keeping his eyes on the road and should not be noticing what’s happening back here,” Eames says. “Anyway, if you don’t want my hands all over you as soon as we’re alone, then you shouldn’t be so dry at Alec, you know you kill me with that sense of humor.” 

“We’re not alone,” Arthur points out. “And you’re right.” 

“Thank you,” Eames says. “I know.” 

“I mean about hiring people you like. You’re right. It should be people we like. Gon and Ariadne are a good idea.” 

Eames smiles at him and says, “We’ll talk about it more after our holiday, yeah?” 

Arthur nods and agrees.


	135. Chapter 135

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated thank-you to everyone who voted for the challenge winner! Thank you! :-)

Arthur is settled on the couch for Viewing Day. He does not, for a change, have his fleece-and-feather-boa blanket on. Because it is finally a lovely, warm spring day, the weather finally giving in to the calendar. He’s thrown open the windows and he has a small whiteboard sitting on his lap on which he is painstakingly writing out their schedule for the next few days. They’re busy enough that they’ve both pushed off all non-show obligations, which means that Eames is doing last-minute shopping for his Virgin Islands project before they head out there. Arthur has already explained the situation to all of his clients. He’s got one in current negotiations that he’ll have to keep handling but the rest are in that regrouping phase that happens when Arthur gets through their heads that they’re not on the same page _at all_. They’ll all keep for a week. 

“Darling?” Eames calls from the kitchen. 

“In the living room!” Arthur calls back, double-checking the latest entry he’s written out. 

“It smells fantastic in here. What’s that smell?” 

“Fresh air,” says Arthur drily. 

“Ah, if only we could bottle fresh air,” remarks Eames. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m writing out our schedule. I’ll put it in the kitchen so that we both know what’s coming up from day-to-day.” 

Eames is silent, so Arthur looks up at him. 

He is regarding the whiteboard with a wrinkled nose, his expression one of thinly veiled distaste. 

“What?” asks Arthur, confused, because Eames usually handles promotion with much better humor than Arthur does. 

“Are you…going to put a whiteboard up in our…kitchen?” 

Arthur doesn’t understand why Eames isn’t grasping the concept here. “Yeah, so we can see our schedule at a glance.” 

“A whiteboard,” Eames repeats again. “In our beautifully designed kitchen.” 

The penny finally drops for Arthur. _Oh_. This is about Eames the Designer. His sense of aesthetics is wounded. 

Arthur says, unsure how to fix this, “Well, I…I thought it would be useful but if you—”

“No,” Eames says, even though it’s clear it’s paining him to say it, “there’s nothing for it, we must use it for now. But I’ll buy us a chalkboard to hang up in there, so that we do not have this issue in the future.” 

Arthur knows this is a compromise Eames is making for him, and he smiles to show his appreciation. “Thank you,” he says, shifting the whiteboard aside so he can lean up.

Eames leans down to meet him halfway, accepts his brief kiss. 

“How did the shopping go?” Arthur asks pleasantly, making room on the couch for Eames in case he wants to sit like a normal person. 

“Yeah,” Eames answers. “Good. I think there’s nothing more I can do until I get there in person.” 

“Ready for Viewing Day?” 

“Mm-hmm,” says Eames, and then produces a box from behind his back in a flourish. 

Arthur blinks at it. “I must be out of it. I didn’t even notice you were hiding your hand.” 

“Happy Viewing Day, darling,” Eames says, and sits next to him on the couch and kisses his cheek and puts the box in his lap. 

“Eames, really,” sighs Arthur. It’s a white box with a bright green ribbon, like Sunny’s room. “I said no more Viewing Day gifts, didn’t I?” 

“I know, I know, I spoil you terribly. Let me, hmm? You deserve spoiling, and I deserve to be permitted to spoil you. It is my greatest pleasure in life. You would not deny me my greatest pleasure, would you?” Eames kisses a spot on the back of Arthur’s neck, just at his hairline. 

“You’re manipulating me to get what you want,” says Arthur. 

“It’s called ‘charm,’ darling. And how terrible, isn’t it, that what I want is to lavish you with presents. Truly dreadful. Honestly—”

“Alright, alright,” Arthur says good-naturedly, shrugging Eames away from him. “I will open your gift and let you spoil me, how’s that?” 

“Excellent,” Eames says, and Arthur knows he’s smiling because Eames kisses his dimple. 

Arthur pulls off the ribbon and pulls out… “A peacock-pattern Speedo?” He holds the tiny piece of fabric up. 

“Isn’t it lovely?” asks Eames, beaming. “It’s for the Virgin Islands.”

“For…what…in the Virgin Islands?”

“For you! To wear!” 

“I am not wearing a Speedo.” 

“You were going to sprawl out there naked, and I’m sorry, but I feel an obligation to protect certain parts of you from sunburn. I am very particularly fond of certain parts of you.” 

“Eames. A Speedo, though? With peacocks all over it?” 

“Well, it’s a reference to Ariadne’s room.” 

“I got that.” 

“And it’s also a very clever joke about what it covers.” 

“I’m not sure if I’d call it ‘very clever.’”

“Harsh,” says Eames, “you are such a harsh audience.” 

Arthur kisses the smile on Eames’s face. “Thank you for spoiling me.” 

“Anytime,” Eames says, and kisses back.


	136. Chapter 136

The general attitude on Twitter is that they are never going to top last week’s episode. Which Arthur agrees with. But he hopes Twitter enjoys this week’s episode, too, because honestly, his new show with Eames (name still to be determined, and that’s on their to-do list for this week, too) will never be as dramatic as last episode was, if he has anything to do with it, and he wants to feel confident that people will still tune in. 

Twitter also keeps complaining about the fact that Alec is still judging. 

_This had better not be for the ratings. #nomorealec_

_Why does this man still have a job? He’s sleeping with the contestants! #nomorealec_

Arthur still feels a little bit bad. He can’t help it. Alec really does seem clueless that he did anything wrong. 

Of course, he also suffered no consequences, which is possibly why he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. 

It all makes Arthur’s head hurt. All he knows is that he worries about the way people perceive him, and that maybe he comes across as cavalier and insulting as Alec, and the only thing that really grounds him is the fact that Eames loves him. He grew up lonely and alone and convinced that there was something wrong with him that made him mainly unlovable by people who weren’t his mother, and the only thing that had fixed that was Eames coming along and (eventually) saying, _No, no, no, you’re perfect_. And maybe Alec just hasn’t found that person yet. 

Arthur makes a sound of distress. 

“What?” Eames asks, as the _Previously on Next Big Thing_ plays. 

“Why did you ever fuck him?” Arthur asks. “I mean, I’m over it, I am, it’s not that I’m jealous, it’s just that he makes my head go all around in circles.” 

“I know,” Eames says, and rubs at Arthur’s ankle where it’s resting on his lap. 

“And I blame you for that,” Arthur accuses. 

“I know,” Eames says again.

Arthur looks at Eames’s profile as the episode starts up. Then, abruptly, he leans over and pauses it. 

Eames looks at him in surprise. “What are you doing? I thought you wanted to watch this.” 

Arthur scrambles a little so that he can shift to straddle Eames. 

“Okay,” Eames says, in vague confusion. “Not that I’m protesting here…”

“Look at me,” Arthur says. 

Eames does, meeting his eyes. 

Arthur holds his gaze, those beautiful eyes, as he combs his fingers through Eames’s hair, as he shifts very meaningfully against him. Eames isn’t hard yet but Arthur knows very well he can get him there, knows all the tricks to get him there as quickly as possible. 

And it isn’t that Arthur is jealous, it’s just that Arthur just really wants to know, wants to be told, again, that he isn’t Alec, that he won’t ever be, because Eames found him and looked at him and _saw_ him and wanted to keep seeing him. And he knows it makes him desperate and needy that he needs to be reassured of that so often but he can be those things with Eames because Eames loves him and will always love him. Arthur looks at Eames’s calm even eyes, these eyes he knows so very well, so much better than he’s ever known his own, and he knows the way Eames looks at him, different than he looks at anyone else, ever. Eames’s eyes are the safest place in the entire universe. 

“I know the answer to this,” Arthur says in a low voice, and leans forward to nip underneath Eames’s jaw. 

“Yes?” prompts Eames. 

“But I want to hear you say it anyway.” Arthur closes his teeth into Eames’s earlobe, tugs. 

“Okay,” gasps Eames, as Arthur shifts against him again. 

Arthur straightens so that he can look into Eames’s eyes again. “He never made you feel like this, right? This is just me?”

“Darling,” says Eames. “He never made me feel anything at all. And certainly nothing like this.” Eames’s hands come up, curl into Arthur’s hair, which he’s left free and loose because today was a home day, a just-for-Eames day. “I love you,” Eames says. 

Arthur kisses him because just saying _I love you_ back seems so inadequate. He pulls back an inch to pant, “I’m going to blow you now.” 

“Oh,” says Eames dazedly. “Okay.” 

Arthur slides off Eames’s lap to his knees and deals with getting everything out of his way so he can work. He’s good at this and he knows it and it’s satisfying that Eames groans and thrusts a little to meet him. 

Arthur pulls off, just to torture Eames a little bit, and says, “Never like this, right?” 

“Fucking _Christ_ ,” Eames says in response, and tries to push his head back down. 

“Tell me,” Arthur says firmly. “Never like this.” 

“Never like this,” Eames promises desperately, so Arthur rewards. “Never—even—bloody—close,” Eames gasps, his hands clenching reflexively in Arthur’s hair, “ _darling_.” 

There are times when Arthur draws this out for Eames, because Eames is a tease in bed and Arthur likes to give him a taste of his own medicine, but right now Arthur wants to be completely fucking overwhelming, wants to send Eames’s brain short-circuiting offline with the onslaught of sensory overload. So he does, pushes him over the edge and then way beyond it, until Eames finally flinches with oversensitivity, makes a small pained noise of protest, and Arthur puts his forehead to Eames’s breastbone and takes a deep breath to get himself under control. 

“Get up here,” Eames says hoarsely, and manhandles him onto the couch and gives him a sloppy, messy kiss as he struggles to get his hands inside Arthur’s pants. 

Arthur makes a harsh sobbing frantic sound, arching into Eames’s touch. 

Eames mumbles into Arthur’s throat, “Shh, darling, I’ve got you, that’s it,” and Arthur is caught off-guard by how quickly he comes. 

Arthur, exhausted, slumps over, onto the couch, and manages to crack an eye open. Eames is licking off his hand, and Arthur closes his eye again and groans, “Fuck.” 

“Well, now,” comes Eames’s voice, “that doesn’t sound very happy for a post-coital man.” 

“We broke my rule about no handjobs on the couch,” Arthur complains, opening his eyes and watching Eames wiping his hand on his shirt now. 

“That was mostly your fault,” Eames points out. 

“Thanks for reminding me,” says Arthur. 

“No problem. Look, the mess isn’t that bad.” 

“Eames, our parents are coming to visit _this week_ , I’m not having them sit on this couch.” 

“I’ll buy a new couch,” Eames assures him. Then he collapses himself heavily onto Arthur. 

Arthur grunts in reaction. “We can’t buy a new couch every time we fuck on the old one.” 

“Yes, we can, we just made ourselves a lot of money and I am willing to spend it all in the interest of fucking you fairly often.” 

“Well, good,” says Arthur, adjusting Eames’s weight over him, “because my sex club dues are pretty exorbitant.” 

Eames says, “Please be in a better mood, darling, I pride myself on my post-orgasmic good moods,” and kisses the tip of his nose. 

“I’m in a good mood,” Arthur says honestly. “That’s why I didn’t stop you.” 

“Let me tell you, it was bloody fucking hot that you were so far gone you forgot all about your rule,” Eames says, and nips at his lips in a quasi-kiss. 

“I just really wanted you,” Arthur confesses. “Just, you know, because I can.” 

“Yeah,” Eames says, and smiles at him warmly like nothing about that was embarrassing. “That happens.” 

“Plus, our parents are coming and we won’t be able to fuck whenever and wherever we want for a little while, so I thought we should get it out of our systems.” 

“Darling, we’re never going to get that out of our systems.” 

“Promise?” asks Arthur, very seriously. 

“Promise,” Eames says, just as seriously, and kisses both of his dimples, solemn and reverent, as if to seal the vow. “If you’re done ravishing me, do you want to watch our television show now?” 

“Well, actually,” says Arthur, “first we’re cleaning up.”


	137. Chapter 137

They’re hopelessly behind now, but it’s okay because there isn’t really much to this particular episode. Alec gives his little speech before reading out the challenge and Eames has to prompt him that he forgot the challenge and Twitter dies laughing over that a little bit and a couple of people say, _I guess keeping Alec around did have some advantages._

The contestants, it turns out, are mainly flummoxed by the challenge. It’s so simple and straightforward that it’s hard for them to determine what they can do to stand out. Misty Rainbow hits on her mural idea right away, but the rest of them really struggle, especially Scott, who goes through a series of half-hearted ideas in interviews before finally saying, “I don’t know, maybe stripes?” 

Arthur manages to feel a little bit guilty over all of this, because he was supposed to mentor these challenges. But after the team mentoring, none of them have been expected to do any of the mentoring they were supposed to do. There wasn’t really much explanation for this, other than the fact that the first challenge after the team challenge was supposed to be mentored by Alec, and Arthur thinks Mal decided she didn’t want to deal with that—Mal’s desire for drama has limits, and those limits are mostly when Mal herself would have to get involved without Arthur and Eames as buffers, Arthur’s noticed—and so all of the mentoring was scrapped. And it isn’t that Arthur had any great ideas about how rooms should be painted but he does feel like the contestants might have benefitted by having someone to bounce ideas off of. 

The judging starts with Scott’s room. Mal leaves in all of Alec’s snarky comments, of course, ending with, “This show is supposed to be to find the best _interior decorator_.” 

Several people on Twitter query whether Alec has ever designed anything in his life. 

Arthur on-screen makes his suggestion about reimagining walls and Twitter loves the idea and then goes off on a tangent about how you could reimagine walls and how Arthur can _reimagine my walls whenever he wants, if you know what I mean_ , with an Eames-eyebrow-waggle gif attached. 

“How do they make everything sound like a double entendre?” demands Arthur in real life. 

“What’s that, darling?” Eames asks, busy tweeting what turns out to be _Arthur is the best at reimagining walls. If you know what I mean_. 

“No,” Arthur tells him as he reads the tweet. “No, I do not know what you mean. Please tell me what ‘reimagining walls’ is meant to be a double entendre for.” 

Eames says, “Something filthy,” and waggles his eyebrows at him. 

“Eames,” Arthur sighs. “That is not how double entendres work. You can’t just say them in a certain tone of voice and boom, there’s a double entendre.” 

“Yes, darling, that is exactly how double entendres work. You’re meant to use your imagination. Look, here’s another one I’m tweeting right now.” He talks as he types it in. “You should see Arthur reimagine walls in the sex club. Hashtag Arthur’s sex club.” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Is that a hashtag now? ‘Arthur’s sex club’? Our parents are coming to visit us!” 

“So we won’t show them the sex club,” Eames shrugs. 

“We don’t have a sex club!” Arthur reminds him. 

“If we had one, we wouldn’t show it to our parents, though,” says Eames. 

“I don’t even understand what we’re talking about right now,” Arthur says. 

“Look how many times my sex club tweet has been retweeted,” Eames says proudly. 

Arthur sighs. 

Twitter’s got a lot of love for Sunny’s room, which makes Arthur happy, because it might have honestly been his favorite room of this challenge. It was certainly the only room he’d wanted to take home with him. 

Arthur in real life says, “I’m serious, we should do one of our rooms like that.”

“Yeah,” Eames agrees. “I’ve got to think of which one it should be.” 

Twitter also oohs and aahs over Misty Rainbow’s room. There are lots of exclamations of support of Misty Rainbow killing it in the wake of the whole Alec debacle. 

“Part of me thinks Misty Rainbow should have been an artist,” Eames-in-real-life comments. 

“You’re an artist,” Arthur says. 

“That’s sweet of you to say,” Eames says, smiling at him, “but I mean just a straight-up artist. With canvases instead of rooms.” 

“She’s a talented painter but I can’t see her ever being happy just painting,” Arthur says. “She’d need to be some kind of multimedia artist.” 

“Probably some kind of performance art,” Eames agrees. 

Ariadne’s peacock room is actually more striking on the television, somehow. The playfulness of it really gets communicated. 

_Hell yes, peacocks_ , reads one tweet. _Peacocks are basically this show’s mascot._

“I don’t get it,” says Alec on the episode, and Arthur just shakes his head all over again. 

“Is he making your head whirl again?” Eames asks in real life. “Should I prepare myself for another blowjob attack?” 

“You wish,” Arthur says to him. 

“Hope does spring eternal,” sighs Eames. 

“My favorite thing about you is how you can, with a straight face, act like you are anything approaching starved for good sex,” remarks Arthur. 

“I am very greedy and demanding,” Eames explains. 

“Yeah,” says Arthur, and turns back to the episode in time to see them finishing up Gon’s room. 

The general consensus on Twitter is that all the rooms are awesome and they have no idea how the judges are going to choose a winner. 

So Arthur tweets, _This challenge was the hardest one yet. Everyone did such a spectacular job._ Because it’s true. 

Twitter does some pretty happy with Sunny’s win—there’s lots of _aww, Sunny, she’s so sweet!_ \--and to be okay with Scott’s loss-- _He had the most livable room but this show is about something different, so I see why he had to go_.

The episode finishes with a bunch of time left, and that gets devoted to explaining exactly how the finale is going to work. _Two hours!_ the narrator shouts as enthusiastically as anyone has ever shouted anything in the history of time. _Two challenges! And three eliminations! Until we find the one winner!_ There’s lots of swooping text and dramatic music. It’s so over the top that you’d think Alec designed it. _With live commentary from the contestants and judges, fielding live questions from you the fans! Tweet at NBTShow to get your question on-air! And stay tuned all the way to the end for a special announcement from Eames and Arthur!_

Arthur is already composing a tweet so that he can urge people to get their questions in early so that they can have preparation but he looks up at the sound of his own voice. _If there’s one thing Eames and I know, it’s big things_. 

“Oh,” Eames says. “It’s our promo.”

And it is _a_ promo. But it’s not at all what Arthur expected it to be. Kalinda had explained that she’d just piece an ad together from what they’d shot, and Arthur knew what they’d shot, so he’d thought he had some idea what the finished ad would look like. But he’s still caught off-guard. 

It is not fifteen seconds of teaser. It’s a full thirty-second spot of quick cuts of Eames and Arthur’s attempts at filming the promo. It starts with Arthur delivering his serious line, but then it intercuts to Eames saying, “Let me tell you why you should watch _Next Big Thing_ ’s live finale,” and Eames unbuttons his shirt with that come-hither look in his eye. There’s a quick cut to Arthur looking off-camera and saying dazedly, “I date this man. I have no excuse. I’m sorry.” Eames winks at the camera. Arthur says, “Oh, my _God_ , you can’t do that for the promo.” Eames responds, “That is going to get viewers.” There’s a reaction shot of Arthur looking appalled. “Button that button,” he tells Eames. “Darling,” says Eames, gesturing to his chest hair. “This is important.” 

“This is _amazing_ ,” breathes Eames in real life. 

“This is why people think we have a sex club,” says Arthur to Eames in the promo. “You realize that, right?” Quick cut to Eames talking into the camera. “Sebastian Stan, if you’re watching this, call us.” Another reaction shot from Arthur. Eames saying, “Go ahead, darling, say your line, I’m going to take this seriously now.” Arthur looks at the camera, mouth opening and closing like a fish, and then says, “I can’t remember my line. What’s my line?” And then Eames ducks close to Arthur, pulling him in, grinning, and says, “We’re Eames and Arthur, and you should watch the _Next Big Thing_ live finale. Tell them why, darling.” Arthur says, laughing, “Because Eames and I know big things. You should watch and find out what those big things are.” “Also Arthur will wear a really nice suit,” adds Eames, and kisses Arthur’s dimple. 

And then the promo ends. 

There is a moment of silence in their house until the next commercial starts up. Arthur turns off the television and turns to Eames and says, “What did you think?”

“What did _you_ think?” Eames counters.

And normally Arthur is full of criticism when he sees himself on television, but honestly he has nothing bad to say about that. He can’t come up with a single thing. He says hesitantly, “I think I really loved it.” 

“I know I really loved it,” agrees Eames immediately. “I thought it was bloody amazing. That is the most I think we’ve ever looked like us since we’ve been on television together.” 

And yes, thinks Arthur. Eames has put his finger on it. Arthur cringes when he sees them on television when they don’t feel like them. That was _them_. 

Eames is scrolling through his phone. “And Twitter fucking loves it.” 

Arthur checks as well. 

_OH MY GOD IS THAT THE CUTEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN. #armes5eva_

_WHAT IS THIS BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. I WANT TO KNOW. ARE THEY GETTING MARRIED!! OMG!!! #armes5eva_

_I can’t help it. My heart is a black place that hates everything but I love the way those two look at each other, damn it. #armes5eva_

_Did Eames really just wink into the camera, or did I dream that up?_

_Nope, I just checked again, he really did wink._

_I’m with Eames: His chest hair is very important, Arthur._

_NO, EAMES, DON’T LISTEN TO ARTHUR. DON’T BUTTON THE BUTTON._

_EAMES AND ARTHUR *KNOW* *BIG* *THINGS.* I CAN’T EVEN WITH THIS, YOU GUYS. #canteven #armes5eva_

_…I’ll be in my bunk. #armes5eva_

_I’m just going to assume that Arthur and Eames talk to each other in terrible double entendres all the time. #armes5eva_

_I’ve done a lot of research on this. For, you know, science. And Eames kisses Arthur’s dimple in that closing shot. He *kisses his dimple.* #armes5eva_

And there’s a tweet from Ellen DeGeneres. _Yes, I’ve got Arthur and Eames as guests on my show next week. And we will ask them about this next big thing for them!_

“And so it begins,” says Eames, and kisses Arthur’s dimple, in real life.


	138. Chapter 138

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to ladyprydian and chocolamousse and possibly/probably others for pointing out how much Arthur would hate chalk dust. 
> 
> Although, to be honest, at my school we have whiteboards and I despise them. The markers are constantly running out of ink and never seem to actually erase properly and I end up with marker all over my hands. 
> 
> They really need some kind of state-of-the-art digital ink thing with a stylus, I'm thinking.

Eames says he thinks they need wine and wanders into the kitchen to get them some. 

Arthur steals Eames’s tablet to rewatch their promo on YouTube. It already has tens of thousands of views and it just went up. The comments are mostly positive, with the expected _Why must gay people ever exist to sully my eyeballs?_ idiot people, and Arthur almost wants to reply with _Okay, Eames’s shirt might sully your eyeballs but did you see my suit and his lips, because those things sully nothing_. He doesn’t, though. Instead he just watches the promo over and over. In slow motion. Noticing a bunch of little things that he doesn’t usually get to see about their interaction. 

Arthur skips over Eames’s mugging for the camera, because honestly, Arthur gets to see that all the time, that’s what passes for _seduction_ in Eames’s world. (Yes, Arthur finds it terribly effective. That is beside the point.)

What Arthur is mainly looking at is the way Eames looks at him. Arthur knows that look, because he sees that look all the time, but it’s something else entirely to see it on-screen like this, much more open and genuine and honest than Arthur’s ever seen it before on-screen. It had been a good day for them, light and flirtatious, and it’s so evident in their interaction. 

Arthur watches Eames pull him in, and he watches himself go, so easy and natural, like he belongs right there nestled next to Eames, like there is nowhere else that could ever fit him half as well. He watches the way he loses all of his tension, the way he melts into place, the way his face creases into a smile, the way Eames ducks forward to kiss his dimple, his grin of delight firmly in place. The promo ends just as Arthur starts to turn to Eames, and the brightness in Arthur’s eyes is astonishing to him. Arthur watches himself on film a lot. Arthur never sees himself look like that. 

“What are you doing?” Eames asks, coming back into the living room with wine for them. 

Arthur has the promo on pause, is looking at his face in three-quarters profile, grinning at Eames, at Eames grinning back. It’s a typical look for Eames, but Arthur has never seen himself grin like that before. “Look at the way I look,” he says. 

Eames glances at it without interest, as if it is _nothing_. “Yes,” he says, dropping onto the couch next to Arthur. “That’s how you look.” 

“No, it’s not,” Arthur says, because he knows the way he looks, there are a million gifs of the way he looks wandering around the Internet, none of them look like that. 

“It is when you look at me,” Eames says, and kisses the side of Arthur’s head. “It’s lovely.” 

Arthur stares some more at the paused promo video, and then looks up at Eames in amazement. “Do I really look like that when I look at you?” 

Eames looks quizzical. He glances at the tablet, then back to Arthur. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Is that a bad thing?” 

“No,” Arthur says honestly, relieved beyond measure. “I’m so glad I look like that when I look at you. Because that’s how I feel. I didn’t know it showed. I’m glad it does.” 

“It shows,” Eames says. “Have you been worrying about that? Of course it shows.” 

Arthur looks back at the freeze frame and thinks that he loves it, that it might be his favorite photo of them ever. Eames is right: This is them. More them than they’ve ever been. And it’s…yes, lovely is the right word for it.

Arthur puts the tablet aside and picks up his wine. 

Eames says, “Alright, walk me through this hideous whiteboard you’ve got here.” 

“You know, at least I didn’t color-code it,” Arthur remarks. “I thought you’d appreciate that I used just the black marker. It fits our black-and-white color scheme.” 

“Our color scheme is cormorant gray and white,” Eames corrects him. 

“Sorry,” Arthur says, because he is aware that Eames spent a ridiculous amount of time getting the right color to complement the slabs of marble Arthur insisted on picking out. “Anyway. Close enough.” 

“Close enough? The marker’s black and you say that’s ‘close enough’ to cormorant gray?” 

“You know, you’re not a design snob very often,” Arthur remarks. 

“But when I am it’s hot?” asks Eames, leering. 

“Not how I was going to finish the sentence.”

Eames laughs. “Walk me through this,” he says. 

“It’s our schedule,” Arthur says. “Where we have to be and at what time. I’ve tried to be good about bracketing out _p_ time, see?” He points to the gaps he’s left. 

“I do see that. And what’s _p_ time?” 

“Time with our parents. Separately or individually. There should probably be a blend but I thought we could play that by ear, according to how it’s going. Unless you think we should schedule that, too.” 

Eames doesn’t laugh at him for being rigidly scheduled and worrying too much. Eames says, “We can play it by ear. If my parents are overwhelming you, say that you need to check in on the bungalow.” 

“What bungalow?” 

“That’ll be our code. Like our sex code, only not as fun. You say you need to check in on the bungalow, and I’ll make sure we stay out of your hair for a little while. And don’t hesitate to use it, darling, really. I know we’re a bit much and I won’t take it personally. And they’ll have no idea. They’re so very impressed by your very demanding real job.” 

“You have a real job, too,” Arthur points out. 

“Yes, but your job involves _numbers_ ,” says Eames. “That makes it more real. Only real real jobs involve numbers.” 

“That’s nonsensical,” Arthur says. 

“It’s how we reason in the old country,” Eames tells him. 

“Don’t tell your parents I called England the old country,” Arthur begs. 

Eames chuckles. “I won’t. That’s a secret sex code for just the two of us.” 

“It’s not a sex code.” 

“It is. It means ‘Arthur is too drunk for sex at the moment.’”

“That makes it the anti-sex code.” 

“No, it still has to do with sex, so it stays the sex code.”

“I think we’re off-topic,” Arthur decides. 

“Sorry, darling.” Eames looks back at the schedule. “What’s this you’ve got penciled in there? Tailoring?” 

“I need to take the metallic knit one you bought me in.”

“Giacomo didn’t make it right?”

“He did, but there’s no substitute to tailoring right to your body, and I want the suit to look spectacular because I want to wear it to the finale.” Arthur pauses. “If you’re okay with that.” 

“Definitely okay with it,” Eames agrees. “What’s this? _A & E_?”

“Oh,” Arthur says. “That’s time for us. Just the two of us. We’re going to have a full house and a full schedule so I wanted to make sure we don’t forget to take the time to just be us.” 

Eames smiles at him and kisses his temple. “I really don’t understand how I got such a delightful boyfriend.” 

“Your accent,” Arthur says. 

“And probably my frankly magnificent penis.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “That, too.”

Eames huffs laughter against him and says, “Well, your schedule looks good and doable and I like it.” 

“I’m thinking this is what our PA could do for us,” Arthur says. “He or she could, you know, write out a schedule for us. When we’re filming and where and other obligations. And there would be time set aside for us. Because we would make sure that that was always on the schedule.” 

“A & E time.” 

“A & E time.” 

“Not Armes?” 

“I have never liked Armes,” Arthur says, wrinkling his nose a little bit. 

“A & E House Services?” Eames suggests. 

Arthur says, “I have no idea how we’re ever going to decide on a name for the business, honestly.” 

“It’ll come to us,” Eames assures him. “Probably when we’re all relaxed and laidback on the beach.” 

“Moment of inspiration.” 

“Or at the moment of climax,” Eames says. “Probably then, actually. Probably during sex.” 

“Do you do your best thinking during sex?” asks Arthur drily. “Because if so I’m not sure I’m doing my job correctly.” 

“Darling, if you’re thinking of it as a job, then we’ve got many, many issues.” 

Arthur laughs and tucks the whiteboard out of the way and moves to straddle Eames but then he just snuggles in instead of going for anything more sexily dramatic. Eames doesn’t seem averse, snuggling back a bit, and Arthur feels Eames’s contented exhale. 

“Are you really going to get us a chalkboard?” Arthur asks. 

“I’d rather have a chalkboard than the whiteboard, if we’re going to make this a regular thing. Let’s blame my artistic temperament.” 

“It’s fine,” Arthur says. “The chalk dust could get messy, though.”

“Good point. Let me consider our alternatives. So will it be odd that everyone will know our sex schedule?” 

“What?” asks Arthur. “What are you talking about?” 

“If we’re going to have PA schedule us A & E time, he or she will know our sex schedule.” 

“It’s not dedicated sex time, Eames. It’s dedicated _us_ time. Maybe we have sex, maybe we watch _East Enders_ , maybe we just sit in the same room and just, like, _be_.” 

He feels Eames brush a kiss against the top of his head. “When we want it to be dedicated sex time, we’ll switch it from A & E time to E & A time. That’ll be our sex code.” 

“Or we could just do what we do now and just, you know, start having sex.” 

“You’re very against sex codes,” remarks Eames, “for a sex club manager.” 

Arthur says, “It’s almost like I’m not even a sex club manager.” 

“If it wasn’t for your feral sexuality, I could almost be convinced,” says Eames. 

“You have to promise me something about whatever we end up using for our schedule.” 

“Okay,” says Eames. 

“The chalkboard, the whiteboard, whatever it is—it will be for the PA, and for our schedules. We won’t leave each other notes that way. We’ll still use paper for that.” 

“Okay,” Eames says, sounding a bit bemused, and Arthur wonders if Eames really doesn’t know Arthur keeps all of his notes. He’s never said anything, and he doesn’t think Eames would snoop through his desk, but Eames always seems to uncannily know everything about Arthur, Arthur just always expects him to know everything about him. 

But Eames doesn’t probe Arthur’s request any further, he just says, “I promise,” and Arthur feels a little bit better, feels a little bit like, in the midst of all this change, sometimes Eames will still leave him notes with hearts all over them, and that makes everything perfect.


	139. Chapter 139

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw speculation about this. I made up the color "Cormorant Gray." But it seemed appropriate. :-)

Day One of Arthur’s whiteboarded schedule for them is jam-packed. Arthur walks into the kitchen after getting ready for the day to find Eames standing with a cup of tea frowning at it. 

“What’s this?” Eames asks, pointing to a squiggly line that runs through most of the day and says _L_. 

“My mother is driving,” Arthur says, popping bread into the toaster. “I told you that, right? The flights were all inconvenient times and she called them all ‘too expensive’ anyway, so she’s driving in. So that indicates her driving time.” 

“It’s all day,” Eames points out. “It doesn’t take _all_ day to drive here from your mum’s place.” 

“You have never driven anywhere with my mother,” says Arthur, now making himself a cup of coffee. “She stops at almost every rest area to refill the gas tank, you know.” 

“I always think that I ended up with the most practical, prepared person on the planet,” remarks Eames, sounding charmed, “and then you tell me a story about your mother and I realize I was a couple of decades too late.” 

“If you were so inclined, I feel like you could have my mother, you know. She thinks you’re the most charming person to ever exist.” 

“Because I am. But she would never break your heart like that and you know it.” 

“That’s the only thing holding you back, is it?” 

“That and the fact that I’m so madly in love with you it’s disgusting,” says Eames, and slides up behind Arthur to press a kiss to the side of his neck. 

“Thank you,” says Arthur, and purposely dimples at him, because he’s happy and he wants Eames to know it. “That’s a nice way to start the morning.” 

“So I’m assuming your lack of certainty about when your mother is arriving means that I’m going to the airport to pick up my parents on my own.” 

“Is that okay?” asks Arthur. “I feel bad about that, but it’s going to take hours to retrieve your parents and you know that will be exactly when my mother shows up and then I’ll feel bad about not being here and it’ll be a panic spiral for the whole week going pear-shaped.” 

“Panic spiral,” repeats Eames. “Pear-shaped. I fear I have inevitably influenced your vocabulary.” 

“Could be worse,” says Arthur. “I could start saying ‘aluminium’ and sound totally ridiculous.” 

“It’s the proper pronunciation,” Eames insists. “So, on our agenda for today then: Filming the challenge, me to the airport, you staying here. My parents will be jetlagged and want to crash early, as you’ve noted.” 

“My mother will be tired, too. I thought we’d do a really light supper of salads.” 

“Salads?” says Eames. 

“To try to convince my mother we’re grown-ups,” Arthur explains. “And then after dinner it’s A & E time.” 

“Or E & A time,” Eames leers. 

“I’m going to make you work for that E & A time, Viscount,” Arthur tells him, drawing a finger down Eames’s nose teasingly. 

“Oho, this is one of those fics where you lead me on a merry chase, is it? As opposed to one of those fics where you refuse to ever let me get dressed and tie me to a bed and basically beg me to never stop fucking you ever.” 

“Yeah, it’s the former,” says Arthur.

“Because if I stop fucking you, you _die_ ,” explains Eames. 

“What?” says Arthur, confused. 

“That’s how those fics go.” 

“If you stop fucking me, I die?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why would I die?” 

“Your toast is ready,” Eames notes. 

“This is more important. People don’t die from not having sex.”

“You do. In those fics. Sometimes you’ve got some kind of genetic mutation. Sometimes you’re a cat.” 

Eames is saying all of this so casually. Like this is all perfectly normal. “Sometimes I’m a _cat_?” 

Eames shrugs. “Sometimes I’m a dog.” 

Arthur scowls. “You are a lot like a dog. At least that makes some sense. A _cat_ ,” he grumbles, pulling out his toast and buttering it. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous. You have an unhealthy obsession with animals in bed, you know. And you’re laughing,” he accuses, because Eames is laughing, is doing the most terrible job of hiding laughter that Arthur has ever seen. “It’s not funny! It’s alarming!” 

“It’s hilarious, darling,” Eames says, no longer even trying to hide it, gasping for breath. “Because there is something kind of cat-like about you—”

“Oh, my _God_ ,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes. 

“No, no, hear me out,” Eames protests, clumsily pinning Arthur up against the counter while he tries to construct an argument around his hilarity. “You really love to curl up in the sun, and you can be particular about when and how you get cuddled. And you’re fastidious.” 

Arthur wants to pretend like Eames doesn’t have a point. He tries to focus on the fact that nothing about this is a normal conversation. “Are you done?” asks Arthur, lifting his eyebrows at him. 

“Do you think you could purr at me in bed? I’d like that.” 

“I don’t purr,” says Arthur. 

“Like this,” Eames says, and demonstrates purring.

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, and then he can’t help it, he’s laughing, he laughs so hard he ends up wiping tears out of his eyes. “What is _wrong_ with you?” he says to Eames, when he manages to catch his breath. 

Eames’s laughter is trailing off, too, and he leans against Arthur, face pressed into his neck. 

Arthur presses a fond kiss to his head and says, “I am going to make you work so fucking hard for that E & A time tonight.” 

“Meow,” Eames says. 

“Baa,” Arthur replies.


	140. Chapter 140

“Tell us about life with Paul,” Eames prompts Julia as she starts in on his makeup. 

“It isn’t ‘life with Paul,’” Julia says, but she blushes as she says it. Arthur is pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever seen her blush. 

Eames notices, too, of course. “Julia!” he exclaims in glee. “Are you _blushing_?” 

“Stop it,” Julia says, definitely blushing. 

“What could possibly have happened that would cause you to _blush_? Darling, cover your ears, I don’t want you scandalized.” 

“I live with you,” Arthur reminds him. “I am never scandalized by anything.” 

“Arthur, tell me him to be a gentleman and leave me alone,” commands Julia. 

“I am always a gentleman,” Eames protests. 

“You are never a gentleman. That’s why I asked Arthur.” 

“I am defending your honor, Julia,” says Arthur. “Eames, leave Julia alone.” 

“I am nothing but a prince to Julia,” says Eames. 

“Or a viscount,” says Arthur, because he’s in a good mood and he can’t resist. 

Eames shoots him a look. 

Arthur winks. 

Julia says, “Is this some kind of sex code? Don’t do the sex code in front of me.” 

“We don’t have a sex code,” sighs Arthur. 

“We do,” Eames says. “Our sex code is E & A.”

“I don’t want to know what gross stuff that stands for,” Julia says, wrinkling her nose. 

Eames looks offended. “It stands for Eames and Arthur.” 

“Oh,” says Julia after a second. “I thought it was going to be something else.” 

Arthur tries to think what other things “E & A” could stand for. 

“Things are going well, though?” asks Eames. “Because if Paul is being—”

“I need to talk to the two of you,” demands Alec without preamble, abruptly breezing in. 

Arthur just looks at him, because he can’t be bothered to come up with a response to such rudeness. He’s got the obvious “A” but is still stuck on what the “E” could stand for and wondering if Julia has a much more interesting sex life than Arthur has ever had and what’s more interesting than a sex life with Eames and Alec is so the last thing on Arthur’s mind today. 

Luckily Eames is up to responding. Eames says, “Absolutely, Alec. We exist to be at your disposal.” 

“What did the two of you do to cut me out of the promos?” Alec says hotly. 

Julia gives Arthur an _uh-oh you guys are in trouble_ look. 

Arthur supposes he should have been expecting this. And Arthur also doesn’t feel the least bit in trouble. He says the truth mildly. “We didn’t do anything.” 

“Then why am I not in them?” counters Alec. 

“Ask the network,” Eames says. “It wasn’t us.” 

“Oh,” says Alec sarcastically. “So it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you two demanded I not be on your new show?”

Actually, thinks Arthur, it probably does. The network probably got the message from their demands for the new show. That’s probably why they haven’t been subjected to Alec for the promos, and probably why Mal wasn’t even involved with shooting the promo. 

“We didn’t ask the network to exclude you from anything involving _Next Big Thing_ , Alec,” Eames explains, more patiently than Arthur would ever have been able to. Eames really is good at dealing with Alec. “In fact, we had your back when there was pressure to kick you off.”

“Kick me off?” echoes Alec. “For what?”

Arthur wants to ask if Alec can really be that oblivious. He’s sure his face is one of his _you can’t be serious_ reaction gif faces. 

And Eames, shockingly, appears to finally have enough. Eames has limits, really strict ones, and when you reach them, you know. When Eames speaks now it is sharp and harsh and biting. “Stop it, Alec. Stop pretending not to know things that everyone knows you know. You broke the rule with Misty Rainbow and you broke it badly and there was a whole Internet petition about it and I would have thrown you to the wolves and _Arthur_ was the one who stood up for you so you’d really better reexamine who you want to accuse of bring your enemy because it is demonstrably not us.” 

Even Alec manages to look taken aback by that statement. Arthur is impressed that something seems to have finally managed to get through to him. Then Alec narrows his eyes and spits out, “There is no need to be so rude as to bring that up. We all make mistakes, Eames.”

“Yeah,” agrees Eames meaningfully, fixing him with a hard look. “We all do.” 

Alec snaps, “I am not going to let you ruin my career. You already tried to do that once.” 

“I never tried to ruin your career. I never even cared enough about it to try to ruin the bloody thing.” 

“I notice that the person who’s currently your boyfriend is in the promos,” Alec points out. “That would have been me.” 

“Flawless logic,” says Eames flatly. 

Arthur decides this has gone on long enough. Everything about this has gone on long enough. “Alec, don’t be an idiot,” sighs Arthur. “I mean, really. Haven’t we already had this discussion? Walk away. Find a new game. You’ve got a perfectly good show—”

Alec rounds on him and accuses in a hiss, “You stole everything from me.” 

Arthur thinks how, not very long ago, he would have been gutted by that accusation. He would have felt terrible. He would have dragged his way through debilitating guilt for the rest of the day. He doesn’t know if he’s a harsher person now, or a less patient one, or really just a _wiser_ one. “No,” says Arthur, even and sure. “You didn’t want any of it.” 

Alec stares at him. He looks impotently furious, and Arthur is out of sympathy. 

“He’s not a career move, Alec,” Arthur tells him. “He’s not some kind of magic Twitter follower number. He’s a person. A _person_. Who you never wanted. You have agents for furthering careers; not boyfriends. Don’t accuse me of stealing him, when you never actually wanted _him_.” 

“Oh,” says Alec, voice low with fury. “You are so proud of yourself, aren’t you? So smug at how you played this whole thing.” 

“I didn’t play anything,” says Arthur. “And that’s what you find most infuriating about me. I won and I never even had a piece on the board.” 

“I will not let you destroy my career,” Alec spits at him. 

Arthur replies lightly, “ _We_ don’t have to.”


	141. Chapter 141

“ _Arthur!_ ” exclaims Julia as soon as Alec leaves. “That was _magnificent_. Wasn’t that magnificent, Eames?” 

Eames is looking at him with a little smile playing around his lips. “Yes, but he is always magnificent. Now go away so we can do sex code things.” 

“Uh-uh.” Julia shakes her head. “That’ll ruin your makeup. T & A time is going to have to wait.” 

“It’s _E_ & A,” Eames corrects, sounding exasperated. “Eames and Arthur. How is that difficult to remember?” 

“I always think of you as Arthur and Eames in my head,” Julia shrugs. “A & E. Sit still, you’re almost done.” 

Julia goes back to work on Eames. 

Eames cuts his eyes over to Arthur and says, “You’re quiet.” 

Arthur takes his eyes off the door Alec just walked through and answers honestly, “Trying to determine what he’s going to do next.” 

“He doesn’t really have a lot of choices, darling,” Eames reminds him. 

Arthur knows that. There’s not much Alec can do, other than just be unpleasant for the remainder of the show. Something that’s definitely going to backfire once they’re in the middle of a live finale. But still, if Arthur can foreclose any more talk of Eames-as-career-move, he’d appreciate that. His heart hurts to think of anyone treating Eames as nothing more than a career move. Arthur spent a lot of lonely years with subpar boyfriends but he didn’t think any of them had seen him as less than a _person_. 

“Cheer up, Arthur,” Julia says as she finishes up. “Honestly, he’s had much worse coming to him for a while. He doesn’t understand how to be nice to people, he just uses people for his own purposes and throws them aside. Fuck him, right?”

“He’s nothing to write home about in that department,” says Eames. 

“You’re an idiot, Eames, with generally questionable taste in men,” Julia informs him sternly. “You’d better hang on to that one.” She gestures to Arthur. 

Eames smiles across at Arthur and says, “Yeah, that’s the plan.” 

***

Eames tugs him aside when they’re done with the makeup, before they reach the positioned Alec, who still looks sour and out-of-sorts. 

“I’m okay,” Arthur insists. 

“Are you really, though?” Eames asks. “Because normally you say you’re okay and you don’t really mean it and I know you don’t mean it and I let you kind of mull everything over and then we get into bed hours later and you have this whole gorgeous speech that makes me wonder why the rest of us ever bother to talk because we’re never as eloquent as you.” 

Arthur blinks at him in surprise. “What? You’re the eloquent one.”

“Oh, darling, darling, darling,” Eames sighs, and kisses behind his ear. And then kind of just stays there, breathing, like he’s resting. Arthur doesn’t jostle him away, because sometimes Eames just needs closeness like this, and Arthur has learned to read those times. Finally, Eames murmurs, “Thank you,” into Arthur’s skin. 

“For saying you’re a person?” says Arthur, because he can’t imagine what else he’s being thanked for. “Eames, that’s not much. That’s the bare minimum of truth about what you are.” 

“I know. Thank you anyway.” 

Arthur puts his hand on the back of Eames’s neck and scratches his fingers through the hair back there. “Well. You’re welcome, then, for explaining what species you are to Alec.” 

Eames chuckles and draws back. “You do seem to be okay,” he remarks, sounding caught between impressed and amazed. 

“Christ,” Arthur says, “how long have I been so incredibly needy and how do you deal with me?” 

“Darling, under the circumstances of me making you come to work most days with my ex…thing, you’ve not been the least bit needy. You haven’t made me grovel, and you haven’t made me feel bad, and you haven’t done anything but every once in a while make sure that I love you. Which is eminently reasonable and which I am happy to assure you that I do.” 

“Good,” says Arthur. “Because I pride myself on my reasonableness. There is only room for one unreasonable person in this relationship.”

“And that’s me,” announces Eames. 

“How you manage to sound so proud about that…” remarks Arthur, and shakes his head. 

Eames catches it to still it and kisses his forehead and says, “I love you.” 

“I know,” says Arthur. 

“You’re under this impression that you’re the Han Solo in this relationship, and you’re not,” Eames informs him. 

“Can we not have the debate again about which Star Wars characters we are?” 

“You don’t like that debate?” 

“You always make me some random background character in the canteen—”

“The Cantina,” Eames corrects him. 

“I’m just saying that I think I deserve to be cast as a lead character.” 

“Not Han Solo,” Eames says. “I mean, I love you, darling, but Han Solo—”

“Do you think we could announce this challenge anytime soon?” Alec shouts across at them. 

“We’re getting in trouble,” Arthur tells Eames. 

“Uh-huh. Kiss me slow, darling,” and then he leans down and gives him a long, drawn-out kiss, a slow striptease of a kiss. 

Arthur knows what he’s up to and should really push him away but he lets him get away with it. Okay, he kisses back. Arthur isn’t so used to Eames that he turns down kisses like that, okay? 

When Eames pulls away, Arthur murmurs, “You’re such a dick.” 

“Uh-huh,” Eames agrees softly. “A really, really big one.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, laughing helplessly. 

“Let’s go announce a challenge,” says Eames. 

Alec looks daggers at them as they walk over. 

Eames says, “Sorry, were you in a rush? Oh, your neck is probably starting to ache, isn’t it? Such a shame. I’m sorry. I do apologize for being so very unprofessional. It’s horrible when people are unprofessional, isn’t it? Just really sodding annoying. I am _so_ sorry.”

“I’m announcing the challenge,” is Alec’s tight-lipped response to this. 

“Oh, absolutely,” says Eames. “Whatever you like. Again, so sorry for just, you know, snogging like that over there, that was quite unforgiveable…”

Arthur would tell Eames to stop but the truth is that Arthur’s lost all impulse to keep Eames in line. _One more week_ , he thinks, and tips Ariadne a smile as the contestants come in. 

Ariadne winks at him. 

Eames is still talking. It’s something about how bloody difficult it is to keep everything straight when you’ve got two sports cars, like, how do you remember which one’s in the shop and which key you should take and which one has the golf equipment in the boot. Neither one of them golfs. Neither one of them owns a sports car, either. 

Alec interrupts him to say, “Really, it’s okay, you can shut up now.” 

“I just want to make sure that I’ve apologized enough,” says Eames. “I know how you appreciate the power of a profusion of unnecessary words.” 

Alec looks as if the effort to keep from killing Eames is costing him real energy. 

Arthur is actually impressed he hasn’t attacked Eames yet.

Mal says, “Whenever you’re ready, Alec.” 

Alec rips open the envelope. Like, just rips it open. No overdrawn production about it. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows in surprise. 

Eames says, “Oh, my goodness, Alec, please don’t go so quickly, you’re giving all of us whiplash.” 

Alec bites out, “Design a library.” And then Alec stalks off. 

Arthur tries to keep his face neutral, even though he knows that inevitably he’s going to end up as a gif somewhere. 

Eames says, his lips curving into his most charming smile, “Good luck, everyone!”


	142. Chapter 142

“Please listen to the GPS,” Arthur says to Eames. 

“Ariadne?” asks Eames innocently. 

“No,” Arthur says. “Not Ariadne. The actual GPS. The one that is going to tell you how to get to Logan without ending up on the Cape.” 

“Darling,” says Eames, jingling his keys. “I’ll be fine.” 

“See, you say this as if the last time you went to the airport you didn’t ignore the GPS and end up on the Cape.” 

“First, I hear the Cape is lovely this time of year.” 

“Eames,” complains Arthur. 

“Stop,” Eames says, grinning, and hooks his fingers into Arthur’s pockets and draws him in and coaxes him into a kiss. “I’m teasing you. I will listen to the GPS. Even though it is a machine who knows not about the artful routes I choose to take when driving.” 

“‘Artful,’” remarks Arthur, “is such a lovely way of saying ‘lost.’” He lets Eames nip at his lips; there’s amusement in the nip. 

“I’ll ring you when I have retrieved my parents,” Eames says, and lets go of Arthur and jingles his keys again. 

“Please don’t,” Arthur says. “Please just pay attention to driving.” 

“Remind me,” says Eames, “what side of the road do you lot drive on again?” 

“Again: You say this as if you don’t sometimes ask me about taking lefts on red.” 

“I do that because you think it’s hilarious,” Eames informs him. 

“No,” Arthur says. “That is not what I think.”

“You lie,” Eames says good-naturedly. “I see through you like those sexy glasses you wear sometimes.” 

“Go,” Arthur commands.

Eames doesn’t go. Eames pauses and draws a heart on the whiteboard, and then colors it in. Then he winks at Arthur and says, “See you, darling,” as he ducks out the door. 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees, and shakes his head at the heart on his very official whiteboard, before deciding to leave it. 

He has no idea where his mother is on her journey, mostly because his mother hates to use her phone ever while traveling in case she needs it for “an emergency” and finds that her battery is dead. Arthur bought her a car charger for the phone, but his mother apparently thinks it would be jinxing her journey to use the phone indiscriminately. So Arthur has nothing to do but kill time until his mother shows up. He’s jettisoned his clients for the week; he’s refusing to let himself worry about the new show yet; and he’s already looked over the promo they’re embarking on tomorrow, which is remote filming for all of the California talk shows. 

Arthur wanders into the living room, which does have a new couch because, well, they’re obnoxious about spending money at the moment, and has indeed been rearranged to give Eames’s Bonsai tree more light. Arthur stretches out on the couch and takes out his phone and checks Twitter. Eames’s last tweet was _Arthur and I do talk entirely in double entendres but they’re usually better than that ‘next big thing’ one in the promo_. Arthur retweets it, adding, _No, they’re really not_ , and then sends out a new tweet, _Remember to send us your questions for the live finale! Use #nbtfinaleq!_. 

Arthur scrolls a bit through Twitter and then clicks over to Tumblr but he doesn’t feel like ending up deep in whatever the fans are saying at the moment. He’s feeling restless and jumpy and jittery. It’s not like this is the first time his mother has been to their house, but everything feels different about his life, somehow, and he’s worried his mother will walk in and look at him and ask where her son is. 

He turns on the television and is startled by the sight of himself. He shouldn’t be, of course, because he’s a television personality, but he almost never watches the shows other than once, to make sure they’re okay. And even that is a relatively new phenomenon, because there was a time period where he was so sure that he looked like an idiot the entire time on _Love It or List It_ that he refused to watch. 

It’s an episode of _Love It or List It_ , and it’s from the time period when he didn’t watch, after the disastrous first night with Eames, before they’d gotten together. He didn’t watch at the time, but Arthur finds himself watching now with interest. He feels like the formula of the show has gotten stale—or maybe it’s just he’s grown tired of it—but there’s a smooth lightness to the episode Arthur is watching at the moment. He doesn’t remember this particular episode, and he finds himself wanting to see what the couple chooses. He’s fascinated by the segments devoted to Eames when Arthur was off on his own. Eames spends a lot of time refusing to be dismayed by the plethora of disasters befalling the house he’s trying to renovate. It’s so very _Eames_. Arthur doesn’t ever think he seems like himself on television, he always feels like he comes across as stiff and stilted, but Eames is so clearly Eames that Arthur can’t stand it. And he looks ever so slightly younger, slightly more built than he is at the moment, maybe with a bit less thickness around his middle. 

Arthur finds himself curled up on the couch under the fleece-and-feather-boa blanket—Arthur has the windows open, but the air is brisk today—watching the episode avidly. Watching this slightly younger, slightly less familiar version of Eames is like falling in love all over again. Arthur’s love for Eames no longer feels like a constant pang in his chest—he would describe it as a steady glowing warmth these days, although he would only do it under penalty of death—but he can remember how that felt, watching Eames again like this. That was how he felt for this Eames, hanging on his every word, greedy for every glance from him, overawed by the fact of him. 

But even though he feels like he gets sucked into the episode for Eames, he realizes that his own segments are…good. Actually, they’re better than good. He isn’t charming the way Eames is, in full-frontal assault, but he’s charming in a more laidback way. He’s knowledgeable but not insufferable, and a couple of times he makes jokes that he chuckles at as he sits there and watches. Everything about it is so much better than he ever remembers it being. _He_ is so much better than he ever remembers himself being. Even on his own, without Eames, younger and greener, he’s good at this. People have been telling him this forever; it’s just that he’s never really _realized_. 

He meets back up with Eames at the end of the episode, and Arthur watches their interaction closely. He is aloof; Eames practically tap-dances around him, wheedling him into dimples finally. It’s much sweeter than Arthur ever remembers when he thinks about that time period. He snarks at Eames on the episode, but it doesn’t feel like there’s heat behind it, and Eames looks at him like…Eames looks at him like… How did he not notice that, when it was all going on? He snarks at Eames, and Eames gives him a look of such incredible soft fondness in response, and it’s not quite how Eames looks at him these days, but it seems like the prequel of it, the prologue. Arthur never noticed because he couldn’t, because he’d given it a try and he’d been rebuffed and his heart had been _broken_ , although he had tried so hard to pretend that hadn’t been the case. But with a broken heart, you weren’t inclined to notice softness from people; Arthur had covered himself in so much sharpness that softness, especially from Eames, couldn’t get through. Arthur had covered himself in so much sharpness that even softness _toward himself from himself_ hadn’t been allowed. Eames is right: He was hard on himself; he has always been unforgivably hard on himself.

Arthur sends Eames an e-mail, just because he can. _You’re an idiot_ , he types. _And also you’re right. And I love you._

Eames might not even be confused by such an e-mail. He’d probably just shake his head and say, _Right, of course, I love you, too._

It turns out it’s a _Love It or List It_ marathon, and Arthur’s on his third episode when the doorbell rings. He turns the television off—can there by anything more embarrassing than being found watching his own show?—and follows the nightingale trill that Eames has restored to their front door. 

Where his mother is standing. 

“Mom,” he says warmly, and gives her a hug. He’s trying to catalog everything about her: Is she even shorter than him than she was? Does she look tired? Does she seem like she’s squinting behind her glasses and probably needs a new prescription? 

“Arthur,” she says. “You’re worrying already, I can hear you.” 

“I’m not saying anything,” Arthur protests.

She gives him a look as she draws back. A look that reminds him that she is his mother and she has always known him very well and she was the first person he ever worried over and the first person to ever call him on it and he doesn’t have a chance of fooling her on that front. 

So he says, “You should have parked around the back. I told you.” 

“I know,” she replies, “but there was a space here, and I thought the car would be less trouble here. Plus I couldn’t figure out which alleyway led to your back door, so you’ll have to move it for me if you need to.” 

Arthur shakes his head fondly and takes her suitcase from her and says, “Come in. How was the drive?” 

“Not bad. A little bit of traffic.” 

“Eames is getting his parents.” _And hopefully not driving around Cape Cod rotaries in endless circles_ , adds Arthur silently. “Or he would be here to greet you. So we have a little while of just you and me before all of the Eameses descend upon us.”

His mother smiles at him, complete with the dimples he inherited. She says, “Just you and me/ Like the old days,” sounding a little giddy. 

And Arthur, feeling impossibly fond and happy that she’s here, grins at her. “Yeah,” he says. “Like the old days.”


	143. Chapter 143

He shows his mother to her guest room and tries not to be embarrassed about the extravagance that they have multiple guest rooms. But he lives in a ridiculously huge place dripping with marble, big enough to have a lot of rooms they almost never use, and he supposes the fact that there are a few guest rooms is the least embarrassing thing about his house. 

“ _Worrying_ ,” his mother says to him knowingly. 

“It’s, I don’t know, habit,” he says stupidly. 

His mother says, “It’s a lovely house. You know I love this house. Are you worried about Eames’s parents coming?” 

Arthur shakes his head. “No. They’re really nice. I don’t know why I’m behaving like this.” 

“Because you love me and want me to be happy. And so you worry. I do know you, Arthur.” 

“I know,” Arthur says, because he does. 

“Don’t worry,” his mother says. “I am happy, and I am healthy. Let me freshen up, and then I’ll meet you back in the kitchen.” 

Arthur nods. He leaves his mother in her room and goes to the kitchen and tell himself to stop _worrying_ and being so _hard_ on himself. 

His phone rings, and it’s Eames. 

Arthur answers with, “Hey.” 

Eames says, after a second, “Uh-oh.” 

Arthur is alarmed. “What ‘uh-oh’?”

“You didn’t answer by asking me if I was in Wyoming or if I’d started driving on the pavement or if I’d forgotten which airport I was supposed to be driving to. Everything okay?” 

“Fine,” Arthur says, closing his eyes for a second. “Sorry, just distracted. Are you in Wyoming?” 

Eames after a moment says, “Take a deep breath, darling. When I get home, I’ll take you into a corner somewhere and snog you senseless.” 

It makes him smile. Which Arthur knew was the point. “I’m fine,” Arthur says. “Although I appreciate the offer. Are you with your parents?” 

“Waiting at the baggage carousel for them. Got here safe and sound. The GPS’s route wasn’t terribly inventive but I suppose in the end it got me to the airport so I shouldn’t complain, should I?” 

Arthur makes an effort to engage in the banter because he doesn’t want Eames to worry. “It is unforgiveable that ‘inventive’ isn’t a choice on GPS. ‘No highways,’ ‘shortest distance,’ ‘most inventive route.’”

“Mmm,” says Eames, and now he sounds distracted. “Did your mother make it?” 

“Yeah, she’s here,” Arthur says, and waves her into the kitchen as he says it. 

“Is that Eames?” she asks. “Tell him I say hello.” 

“She says hello,” Arthur says obediently. 

“Good. Hello to her. They just announced my parents’ flight. So we won’t be long.” 

“Okay,” Arthur says. “See you soon.” He hangs up the phone and turns to his mother and makes himself smile easily. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “We have…water. Or wine. Or, I guess, coffee or tea.” 

“You’re not worried because I’m meeting Eames’s parents, are you?” his mother asks, and she asks it frankly but also with an undercurrent of her own worry. 

“No.” Arthur takes a deep breath and gets himself under control. “I’m not. You’ll like them. They’re a lot like Eames. And you like Eames.” 

“I love Eames, you know that.” 

“It’s going to go well. I’m just worried because…I’ve been trying to get used to this being my life. You’re obviously more used to it than I am. I was worried you’d walk in and not recognize me.” 

“Arthur,” his mother says, smiling at him. “You’re exactly who you’ve always been. Just in a somewhat nicer suit and a somewhat nicer house and a much nicer relationship than at any previous point in your life.” 

It’s a relief to hear it. He smiles back. He says again, “Can I get you something to drink?” 

She says, “Wine would be lovely.”


	144. Chapter 144

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me fits for some reason. So I apologize because there might be more typos than usual.

He pours them out glasses of wine while his mother reads the whiteboard propped up against the wall.

“Do you want me to help you hang this?” she asks him. 

“No,” he says. “Eames is aesthetically opposed to it. He’s supposed to be getting us some kind of replacement but so far all of them are, and I quote, ‘the ugliest things anyone has ever proposed to be put into a very tasteful kitchen.’” Arthur hands his mother her glass. 

Her mother smiles and looks back at the schedule. “You two are busy.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. 

“And perfectly, beautifully scheduled in the most organized way. I can’t imagine that you were worried I wouldn’t recognize you. You’re exactly the same in every way that counts. The only true differences are you’re taller than I remember. And, of course, happier than I’ve ever seen you.” 

Arthur smiles at her. “That’s true. I’m glad it shows. I mean, not that I wasn’t happy as a child—”

“Arthur,” says his mother gently, smiling at him.

He catches himself. “You’re right. Let’s go into the living room while we wait for Eames and his parents. They’re going to be jetlagged so our plan is a really light supper, just salads and stuff. Is that okay?” 

“Perfectly fine,” says his mother. “I am happy to fall into the appalling habit I have of letting you take care of things.” 

“Only some of the things,” Arthur reminds her. “We always split the load.” 

“And I shouldn’t have let you,” she says. “I was the mother.”

“Which just meant you were the head of our team,” Arthur says lightly. “And you led it very well.” 

“To the extent that I can take any credit at all for you, I can’t say that I can find it in my heart to be too critical of my choices as a mother,” his mother admits. 

Arthur grins at her and then kicks the blanket out of the way on the couch—“Gift from Eames,” he explains, when his mother compliments it—and then settles down with her. 

“So,” he says, “tell me how you’ve been.” 

She actually laughs. 

“What?” he asks, bewildered. 

“I love that you clearly have a million really interesting things going on in your life and you decide to start with me.” 

“Well, I want to know how you’re doing,” Arthur defends himself. 

“I’m fine. Tell me about you. Tell me about your new show.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “We’re excited. I think it’ll be fun. We haven’t done much planning for it yet. We’ve got to get _Next Big Thing_ out of the way and then we’re going on vacation.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely. You deserve a vacation, given how busy you two have been. Where are you going?” 

“The Virgin Islands. Eames has some job there, but it shouldn’t take him long to finish up.” 

“And Eames is well?” his mother asks. 

“He’s good,” Arthur says. “Well, you’ll see when you get home.” 

“I’m looking forward to it,” says his mother. 

There’s a moment of silence. Arthur sips his wine and looks out the window and then hears himself say, “I think he’s going to propose.” 

“Oh, _Arthur_ ,” says his mother, sounding approving. “That’s wonderful. It is, right? You want him to? You’ll say yes?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “I’ll definitely say…So he’s already asked. He asked and I said…to ask me again, because I didn’t want…I told him I didn’t want it to be all caught up in the drama that was going on around us at the time, but I think I’m realizing that I needed…time. Not time to think about whether or not I wanted to marry him, but time to think about _why_ I wanted to marry him, you know? Like, I didn’t want to marry him because I was scared, because I thought otherwise I’d lose him, because I thought maybe it’d…trap him and keep him from walking away.” 

“Marriage doesn’t work like that,” says his mother, not really bitterly so much as matter-of-factly. 

And Arthur knows that. His whole life has been evidence of that, after all. And he’s never thought about it exactly this way before, but there’s a possibility he’s spent his whole life trying to make sure that the people he loves don’t leave him. Thanks, Father He Doesn’t Remember, for all of those lingeringly annoying abandonment issues. “I know,” says Arthur. “And I wanted to make sure that that wasn’t why I wanted to marry him. That I wanted to marry him for good and positive reasons, not negative ones.” 

“And do you?” asks his mother. 

Arthur nods. “Not any I can really articulate, but yes. It’s like…I don’t want him to leave me, I never would, but if he did…I’d be alright. I mean, I’d make it. I wouldn’t want it, but I’d…I’m not marrying him because I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t. I’m going to say yes because, I don’t know, I just want to. I guess because…we’re good apart, but we’re better together.”

“A good team,” his mother says warmly. 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. “A good team.” 

“I think that’s a good reason to get married,” his mother says, smiling. “Oh, Arthur, I’m so happy for you. I’m happy that he’s made you so happy.” 

“He hasn’t asked yet, though, so don’t—”

“Your secret’s safe with me. Now tell me about everything that’s not Eames.” 

And Arthur shouldn’t be surprised by how effortlessly his mother knows about this: He lives with Eames and works with Eames and maybe most of his life is Eames but there are definite pieces that aren’t, that are his alone, that’s just Eames on the periphery because Eames loves him but not because Eames is everything. He talks to his mother about the latest fashions. His mother has always been a fashion plate, brilliantly inventive when she had little money to work with, because his mother always craved beauty around her, and he definitely gets his adventurous style from her. He promises to introduce her to Giacomo so that she can give him a talking-to about “that terrible plaid waistcoat he talked you into.” 

“I really loved that waistcoat,” Arthur admits. 

“Arthur, with that tie, though?” says his mother. 

Arthur doesn’t sartorially misstep often but he concedes, “Fine, fine, you have a point.” 

He moves them off of the fashion topic, asking how work is going for her. Blossoming out of her fashion love, and once Arthur started making enough money that she could relax a little, she’s started working as a personal shopper, and she tells him about godawful clients, and he counters with his own godawful client stories, and they try to one-up each other. 

And then he realizes that he’s telling stories about friends. “My friend Julia,” he hears himself say, and then he’s telling her all about Ariadne and then everyone else on the show, and by the end it’s gone dark in the room around them. 

His mother says, “You sound like you’re having a great time. I’ve never seen you so enthusiastic about television.”

“I liked _Love It or List It_ ,” Arthur protests. 

“You liked Eames. I’m glad you finally spoke up about how you were bored and restless and wanted something different.” 

It was Eames who had first recognized that, actually. But Arthur _did_ shape this new show. Eames gave him the nudge he needed, and Arthur figured out what he wanted from life, above and beyond Eames. And he’s getting there. He’s maybe not entirely sure of things beyond Eames, but he’s getting there. 

And he says that. “I’m getting there. Sometimes I panic and think that it doesn’t matter if I just get to keep Eames but I think I’m getting to the point where I trust that Eames isn’t going to leave me over the things I want.”

“And that, if he did, it would be his loss. And have you stopped worrying about Alec Hart?” 

And Arthur actually laughs. And then he’s amazed at himself, that he has literally reached the point where Alec can come up and he can just helplessly laugh. “Oh, Mom,” he says, “I don’t know where to start with him. I’ve invested so much energy into trying to figure him out and I have gotten nowhere.” 

“But why do you need to figure him out?” asks his mother frankly. “Why is who he is relevant to you at all? There are lots of people you encounter who you’re never going to figure out, and you’ve always before been practical enough to just shrug and move on. What makes him any different?” 

The answer seems obvious to him. Maybe his mother doesn’t realize Alec’s history with Eames. So Arthur says, “Eames used to date him.” Which is a generous characterization, maybe, of what Eames used to do with Alec but he’s not making it coarser than that. 

“Does he date him now?” 

“No,” Arthur says, confused. “I mean…obviously not.” 

“Then why is he relevant to you? The people we date before we get it right, why does that make any difference later? Does not knowing your father mean that you don’t know me?” 

“Mom,” says Arthur, stricken. “No. Of course not. Whoever he is or was has nothing to do with you and who you are.” 

“Then why does Alec have anything to do with the Eames you have today?” asks his mother calmly. 

Which rocks his world almost entirely off its axis. Arthur’s spent all of this time trying to figure out what had drawn Eames to Alec, where the similarities between Alec and Arthur started and where they ended, and why wasn’t it just: Eames got it wrong, and Alec didn’t want him the right way, and everyone moved on. 

“Why do you love Eames?” his mother asks him, when he stays silent, trying to absorb. 

Arthur looks at her blankly, because the answer to that question is too enormous to be put into mere words. He says, “What? Because he’s…I mean, he’s nice and he makes me laugh and he’s smart and he’s talented and he—” All of that sounds so stupid. None of it is the least bit adequate. “I don’t know. I love him because he’s Eames.”

His mother smiles at him. “Right. Exactly. Because sometimes the reasons why people are the way they are, why they make us feel the way they feel, why they behave the way they behave, can’t be distilled into words that make sense for us. Not everyone’s a house, Arthur, with composite parts that can be organized into a spreadsheet. You know that about Eames, and you know that about me, and you know that about yourself. It’s the same with Alec.” 

“You’re right,” Arthur says, because she is, and he should have realized that earlier. He wants to make Alec make sense, but sometimes people don’t. And sometimes that happens in a good way, like looking at Eames’s designs and thinking how much more to him there was than he’d realized at first and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the appealing tangle of life with Eames. 

“You’re worrying,” says his mother, “because you want to make sure you don’t lose this. But it wasn’t like you won the lottery randomly one day and you don’t know how to duplicate it. You worked really hard for this. You have this because you’re you.”

It’s good advice. But he can’t help but say, “There’s also been luck involved.” 

“That’s just life. You can’t eliminate the element of chance, although I’ve watched you spend a lot of time trying. Random chance fell your way, yes, but you seized your chance. Not everybody does that. It’s stupid of me to tell you to stop worrying, because you never will, so why don’t I say instead: Want me to help you make dinner?” 

The sudden conversational shift startles Arthur, but it’s exactly what he needs, the shift away from deep thoughts, the focus back on the mundane. His mother knows this about him, that he can get himself caught up in so many imagined scenarios, and they’re always so much worse than the reality he should be tackling. Eames keeps him distracted; his mother is good at that, too. 

So Arthur just laughs a little bit and says, “Yes. Let’s make dinner.”


	145. Chapter 145

He is setting the table while his mother is mixing a big salad and giving him a bit of a lecture on how “there’s nothing to making a salad, you just need to buy a bunch of interesting ingredients, you could make one every night.” 

“Eames would never eat a salad every night,” Arthur explains, as he hears a car pull up. 

“You should always at least have one as a side dish,” his mother chastises, as Arthur goes to the door to peer out one of the tiny glass panes up at the top. 

“They’re here,” Arthur announces. 

His mother freezes in a way he recognizes, her hand fluttering up to her hair, and because Arthur always feels better when his hair is done, he understands this impulse. His mother likes to pretend he’s the worrier in the family—and it’s true that he’s much more of a habitual worrier than she is—but he knows that she worries about measuring up to Eames’s perfect parents. There is, after all, only one of her to the two of them. 

“This is going to go great,” he assures her, because Eames’s parents are his nice and his mother is amazing.

His mother says, “Of course it is,” as if he’s the one that needs soothing. 

Arthur smiles and swings the door open. And he doesn’t even get to say hello before he is descended upon, caught up in hugs and kisses. There is a torrent of overlapping extravagant praise about how lovely everything about America, the airport, the highway, the town, and their house is. Even though they have barely seen anything in the dark. 

Arthur tries to introduce his mother but Eames’s mother just exclaims, “Oh, my goodness, are you Arthur’s mother? We have been _longing_ to meet you! I’m Maggie,” and she extends her hand politely. Which is clearly Maggie’s attempt at restraint so she doesn’t overwhelm.

Arthur’s mother says, “I’m Laura and I feel like we’re already family,” and pulls Maggie in for a hug. 

Maggie introduces Albert and they once again praise the incredible magnificence of America, this time for Arthur’s mother’s benefit. 

Arthur turns to Eames. 

“Hi,” Eames smiles as he carries in the luggage, and leans in to brush a kiss over his lips. 

“Hi,” Arthur answers, and takes a suitcase from him. “You made it to the airport and back. Well done.”

“Only crossed one border,” says Eames proudly. 

“What border? You shouldn’t have crossed any borders.”

“Where is the fun in taking a trip without crossing borders?” asks Eames, and winks at him and then calls out, “Parental units! I shall just put your luggage in your room, shall I?”

“Albert, go and help Eamesie with the luggage,” commands Maggie. “I’ll help Laura finish up with the dinner.”

“We’ve got the luggage,” Eames says. 

“I’ll just come along and see your magnificent house, eh?” says Albert heartily. As soon as they’re out of the kitchen, he murmurs, “Those two are getting on like a house on fire.”

“Oh, good,” says Arthur, relieved. Not that he was worried, but, yeah. “That’ll be good, right?”

“Or terrifying,” remarks Eames cheerfully. 

Arthur ignores him, swinging the luggage into the bedroom. “How was your flight?” he asks politely. 

“Lovely,” says Eames’s father. “We watched a film starring that bloke who belongs to your sex club. What did you say his name is, Eamesie?” 

“Sebastian,” answers Eames. “Sebastian Stan.” 

“Yes. That’s it. Sebastian. Good name. Is he nice?” 

“Um,” says Arthur, aware he’s blushing terribly. “I don’t actually…I don’t own a...” He can’t bring himself to say “sex club” to Eames’s father. “You know,” he finishes. 

“Arthur, my boy, I want you to know.” Eames’s father’s hand settles heavily onto his shoulder, and he speaks very solemnly. “It makes no difference to me. You make my son happy, and that is what’s most important to me. So, if you’re some kind of sexual empire magnate, so be it.” 

Arthur has no idea whether to say thank you or say that he is _really not_ a sexual empire magnate, whatever the fuck that is, when Eames suddenly drops backward onto the bed, laughing hysterically. Eames’s father’s mouth twitches and then he’s laughing, too. 

Arthur stares. And then he realizes he was being teased and says, “Oh, my _God_ ” and tries to glare daggers at Eames while actually laughing a little himself. 

Eames’s father, gasping around his laughter, says, “I’m sorry, Arthur. I’m sorry. But he said the look on your face would be priceless. No hard feelings?” He offers his hand. 

“No hard feelings with _you_ ,” Arthur says, shaking it, and looks at his giggling boyfriend on the bed. “You on the other hand,” he says to him. “You’re such a…” Arthur trails off because he can’t think of anything he wants to call Eames in front of his father. 

Eames looks at him, his eyes sparked with amusement, because he knows this. 

Arthur thinks of every name he’s going to call him when he gets him alone.

Eames’s father says, “You can call him a knob, Arthur, that’s definitely allowed, because he is one.” 

“A knob, huh?” echoes Arthur. “Yeah, that does sound accurate.” 

Eames picks himself up off the bed and hooks a finger through his belt loop so he can pull Arthur in and kiss his dimple. Which Arthur knows is present, and therefore undercutting Arthur’s attempt to convince Eames that he’s irritated with him. 

“He thinks I am utterly hilarious,” Eames informs his father, grinning. 

Albert looks like he knows this is true.


	146. Chapter 146

When they get back to the kitchen, his mom and Maggie are talking about, of all things, cats. 

Which makes Arthur think of fanfiction and sex. He’s really got to stop Eames from telling him things that are going to make everyday conversations difficult. 

“Oh, yes,” Albert says, “we got a cat, did we tell you?” 

“No,” says Eames, too casually. “Did you? I love cats. Absolutely adore cats. Was just telling Arthur recently about my love of cats.” Eames glances at Arthur and winks. 

Arthur rolls his eyes at him and finds the bread he bought and starts slicing it. 

“Do you want wine with dinner?” Eames asks. 

“Oh, no, thank you, love,” Maggie says. “We’re dead on our feet, honestly.” 

“You can just go to bed now, if you want to,” Arthur proposes. 

“It’s best to stay up a little bit longer,” Maggie says, as they get settled around the table. “Try to get on this time zone. You boys should get a cat.” 

“We’d probably be really bad at taking care of a cat,” Arthur says. 

“They are very independent creatures. And they’re very good at eliminating mice and other household pests. Do you have any of those?” 

“Household pests?” says Arthur. “I can think of one.” 

“Ha,” says Eames, who happens to be passing behind him and drops a kiss on his head as he goes. “Wine, Laura?” 

“Oh, Arthur and I had a glass already, but thank you.” 

“Darling?” asks Eames. 

Arthur shakes his head because he doesn’t want to look like a lush. 

Eames shrugs and pours himself wine, apparently untroubled by drinking alone. 

“I was reading,” Maggie says, “about the importance of roughage in your diet.” 

“And let’s pick another topic of conversation,” suggests Eames, settling next to Arthur at the table. They hardly ever use the table, so they have no set seating, but it made sense for the seat next to Arthur to be empty. Eames immediately puts his hand on Arthur’s thigh, but it’s oddly not seductive so much as it is just…fond. Like, there is Arthur, so Eames will touch him. It’s typical Eames. 

“We don’t want to be any trouble,” says Maggie, shifting conversational topic easily. “Laura and I were just discussing how we don’t want to be any trouble. Laura has volunteered to take us to see some sights while you boys work.”

“You might have suggestions for itineraries?” his mother says to him. 

Of course he does, and she knows it, so he just nods. “Tomorrow morning we’re free,” he says. “And then in the afternoon we have a bunch of appearances to film.”

“Where do you have to go for that?” asks Maggie with interest. 

“The studio,” Eames says. “It’s not far from here.” He is eating his salad gamely, even though Arthur knows he despises salads, because they are green, and green foods are suspicious. “We’ll have to go to Boston later in the week, and then New York. We thought you’d like to come along.” 

“Oh, that sounds marvelous!” says Maggie, eyes shining with enthusiasm. 

“And what is on the agenda for tomorrow morning?” his mother asks. 

Arthur says, “I don’t want to force Maggie and Albert into anything while they’re jetlagged, so I thought you and I would go see Giacomo.” 

“Arthur’s tailor,” Eames explains for his parents’ benefit. 

Maggie immediately says, “Your _tailor_!” sounding very excited. 

The excitement catches Arthur by surprise. He doesn’t expect people to sound so excited about a tailor. He says, “Would you like to meet him, too?” 

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” says Maggie, but she has a look in her eyes that Arthur recognizes because it’s the look Eames gets when he really, really, really wants to do something and is trying not to overpower Arthur into it. 

“No imposition,” Arthur says honestly. 

“Oh, everyone back home will want to hear all about where you get your clothing. Your son wears the most beautiful clothing,” Maggie tells Arthur’s mother. “But I can see he gets his excellent fashion sense from you, obviously. Anyway, he impressed the whole town so much. There was a record producer who came through—Albert, tell Laura about the record producer who came through.” 

Albert launches into the story of the record producer that Arthur’s heard already. Eames squeezes his thigh to get his attention and then winks at him, and Arthur knows he’s trying to distract him from how embarrassing the story would be otherwise. 

When the story’s over, Arthur’s mother says, “And you two own a pub?” 

“We do,” Maggie says. 

“But that sounds so grand,” Albert says. “It’s just a little thing.” 

“It’s true,” Maggie adds. “Just a wee pub.” 

“They’re too modest,” says Arthur. “It’s really wonderful.” 

“Did you used to work in the pub growing up, Eames?” his mother asks. 

Eames says, “I was a terrible, terrible pub worker.” 

Albert says, “I would say to him, ‘Eamesie, love, could you slice up some tomatoes?’ and I’d come back to find every item of food in the place out on the counter except for tomatoes, bless.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “He hasn’t changed.” He looks at Eames in amazement. “You haven’t changed.” 

Eames looks a little sheepish. “I don’t know how anybody can get anything done when everything’s so neat. I mean, I know you manage it, darling, but it drives me mad.” 

“But he redecorated for us a few years ago,” says Maggie loyally, “and he did a beautiful job.” 

“We’ve the most gorgeous pub in the country,” says Albert proudly. 

“We’ll have to take you to see it, Laura,” says Eames lightly. 

Arthur looks at his mother to make sure she’s okay with this, because his mother _is_ like him and can use processing time sometimes. But his mother is obviously handling everything about Arthur’s life with aplomb. She just gives him the most dazzling smile in return and then says to Maggie and Albert, “Oh, I’d love to.”


	147. Chapter 147

Arthur thought that Maggie and Albert would want to go to bed directly after dinner but they surprise him by saying that they’d like to see the house. 

Maggie says, after Arthur finally wins the battle to clear the table without her, “Is it possible to get a house tour, Eamesie?” 

And Arthur wonders why he didn’t expect this, because it’s their first time there, and this house is really their son’s crowning achievement, and of course they want to see it. 

And of course Eames wants to show it off. Eames adores giving house tours. 

“Do you feel up to it?” Eames asks, even though Arthur can tell that he is practically bouncing in his eagerness to accept. 

“I don’t think I could sleep without seeing it, I’ve been waiting for so long.” 

Arthur suddenly feels bad. “We should have shown you around before making you eat dinner.” 

“Arthur,” says Maggie, kindly but firmly, “do not worry that handsome head of yours for a second about that.” 

His mother gives him a suitably impressed look, like, _Well, she’s got you figured out, doesn’t she?_

Arthur loads dishes into the dishwasher and ignores his mother’s look. 

“Well, I shall happily brag to you about our house,” Eames says. 

“You don’t have to go around again,” Arthur says to his mother, “if you don’t want to.” 

“Oh,” says his mother. “I am happy to do whatever you want.” 

“Come for the tour,” Eames says. “Arthur has to come, Arthur does good color commentary during the tour.” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at Eames because he doesn’t know what the hell that means but closes the dishwasher and says to him, “Lead on.” 

Eames stands and gestures and says grandiloquently, “This is the kitchen.” 

“Oooh,” says Maggie, without irony, as if they haven’t been sitting in it all this time. 

“It’s gorgeous, Eamesie,” says Albert. “I love the marble.” 

“That was Arthur’s choice,” says Eames. “Arthur really wanted marble.” 

“Good choice,” says Maggie approvingly. 

“It’s just that the rest of the house has so much marble,” Arthur explains. “You’ll see. I thought the kitchen should look like it flowed naturally from that.” 

“I have made my peace with the marble. Especially since it means we are basically never allowed to cook because marble is difficult to keep clean.”

“Yes, without the marble,” Arthur deadpans, “we’d be making five-course gourmet dinners every night.” 

“See what I’m saying about the color commentary?” says Eames, beaming at him. “So the kitchen is well-equipped and fully stocked and, as you see, functions as both kitchen and dining room. The house is so many formal spaces, we wanted the rooms we were going to live in to be as relaxed as possible. Speaking of: to the lounge!” 

Arthur, vaguely amused, follows behind the little tour group as Eames leads them into the living room. Eames talks about the throw rugs over the marble floors and the judicious use of pattern in the room and the way the windows are oversized and uncovered. “Arthur likes soft things,” says Eames about the rugs, and “Arthur loves pattern,” says Eames, and “Arthur loves lots of natural light,” and Arthur never realized before how much of this tour is about him. He feels vaguely embarrassed. 

He says honestly, “Eames chose the entertainment system,” because their entertainment system has more bells and whistles than Arthur thinks anyone could ever possibly need unless they were the fucking Metropolitan Opera. 

“I did!” says Eames gleefully, and spend the next little while happily walking everyone through his entertainment system. His father is fascinated by it and asks a million questions. His mother mainly says, “It’s like watching _EastEnders_ in a cinema!” and Eames says, “ _Yes!_ ” as if that is adequate justification for the entertainment system. 

Arthur’s mother says, “ _EastEnders_?” 

Maggie says, “ _Laura_. Do you not know _EastEnders_? Eamesie, we simply must show Laura _EastEnders_ , how have you not done that yet?” 

Arthur leans against the wall by the doorway and watches and feels…content. Not just happy. _Content._ Very, extremely, extraordinarily content. 

Maggie is explaining something about _EastEnders_ to his mother and Albert is vehemently disagreeing and Eames looks over at him and smiles. It’s not a wink or a grin, just a smile. Arthur imagines what the smile says is, _I’m very content with all of this, too_. 

Arthur says, “Let’s move on to my office.” 

Eames says as they head down the hallway, “Arthur gave me river hallways for my birthday.” 

“What are those?” asks Maggie with interest. 

“Whatever I make them. I haven’t decided yet.” 

“Next time you come to visit, we might be doing this tour by gondola,” remarks Arthur. 

“Quality color commentary,” Albert tells him.

Everyone compliments Arthur on his lovely office and Maggie frowns at the state of Eames’s office and turns to Arthur and says, “Thank you for putting up with him on a daily basis, I don’t know how you do it.” 

Arthur says truthfully, “His good qualities vastly outweigh his bad.” 

“And I mainly keep the mess in here,” Eames adds, which, it’s true, goes a long way to helping them work as a couple. 

Eames’s parents are overawed by the public rooms when they get to them, and Arthur doesn’t blame them. They’re so markedly different from the coziness in the rest of the house. 

“We only ever use them when we have a party,” Eames says, as they move through the cavernous, empty rooms. 

“I can see what you mean about the marble, Arthur,” says Maggie. 

“It’s really so much more house than we need,” Eames continues, “but I was in love with the _idea_ , I just had to have it.” 

“I love it,” Arthur says, because he does. “It’s somewhat outlandish, but I think it’s very us. It’s my favorite place I’ve ever lived.” 

“Aww,” says Maggie. “Isn’t that sweet, Eamesie?” 

“Yeah,” says Eames, “that’s why I keep him around. And because he said I could have an indoor forest in here. And a chocolate garden.” 

“Or,” says Arthur. “I think it’ll have to be ‘or.’”

“I’m going to find a way to make it both,” Eames tells Maggie. 

Maggie looks at Arthur and says, “You really are a saint.”


	148. Chapter 148

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got work stuff tomorrow so my schedule's going to be a bit off. Advance warning! :-)

Eames’s parents go to bed right after the tour. They give Eames fond kisses and hugs and then do the same to Arthur and then the same to Arthur’s mother. 

Arthur says to his mother, “Do you want a cup of coffee before bed? We have decaf.” 

She shakes her head. “I had a long day, too. All that driving. I think I’ll just curl up in bed with a book. Good night, Arthur.” She kisses his cheek. “Good night, Eames.” She kisses Eames’s cheek, too. 

Arthur leans against their kitchen counter and listens to her footsteps retreating. He looks across at Eames, who looks back at him, and then he smiles a little and says, “Hi.” 

“Hi,” Eames responds. 

Arthur reaches for him, grabbing at a handful of his shirt, and pulls him in. Eames comes easily and brackets him against the counter with his arms and then settles his chin on his shoulder. Arthur takes a deep breath of him and closes his eyes. 

Arthur isn’t sure how long they stand like that, although it’s long enough that he feels himself fully uncoil. It’s the remarkable thing about Eames: Arthur didn’t feel stressed out all day. He felt, in fact, relaxed and pleased and _content_. But there’s the base level of relaxation that is Arthur-without-Eames, and then there’s the extra relaxation of Arthur-with-Eames. He wonders if it’s the same with Eames. 

Eames finally suggests, “Bed?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. They hold hands as they walk to their bedroom. Arthur watches his feet move over the floor of the hallway and says, “This river hallway idea. Can we make it so we’re not in any danger of breaking our ankles?” 

“Darling,” says Eames seriously, opening their bedroom door for them, “a broken ankle can happen anywhere, at any time. I cannot guarantee your safety from broken ankles.” 

“I know,” says Arthur, walking into the bedroom. “But can we try to minimize the risk of broken ankles within our own home?”

“There are sometimes sacrifices that must be made in service of aesthetics,” Eames replies, following him in and closing the door. 

“By the way,” says Arthur, and suddenly shoves him, lightly but with intent, pushing him back against the wall and then crowding in. “You’re a fucking asshole,” he breathes over his lips. 

Eames smirks at him. “You love it.” 

Arthur works at Eames’s belt. “Notice how nice I am to you in front of your parents. ‘Oh,’ says your mother, ‘how do you put up with Eames?’ and I should have said, ‘Have you ever seen his dick?’”

“That would be a weird and inappropriate thing to say to my mother,” says Eames. “Who has changed my nappies, remember.” 

“Oh, sorry, that’s weird and inappropriate, but it’s totally okay to tell your father I’m a sex empire magnate?” 

“Hey, he came up with that term all on his own. I just said, you know…” Eames falters suddenly. 

Which surprises Arthur, because yes, he’s unbuttoning Eames’s hideous shirt but he’s not actually doing anything that should be interfering with Eames’s ability to converse with him. Arthur pauses and looks at him. “What?”

“He wanted to tease you about it,” Eames says. “Because he likes you. He likes you enough to tease you.” 

It’s a very Eamesian thing, Arthur realizes abruptly. Something Eames has in common with his father. Eames teases Arthur because he loves him, it’s part of how he shows his affection. 

“He wanted to tease you,” Eames continues, “and I said you loved being teased, because I thought you—I’m sorry if I—”

Arthur cuts him off with a kiss, because he can’t say anything out loud about being the object of such generational Eamesian affection for fear that he’ll make a fool of himself. So he just kisses Eames hard, up against their wall, his fingers tracing lines down Eames’s chest to his hips, and Eames brings a hand up to thread into Arthur’s hair and hold him in place. 

Arthur draws back and shoves at Eames’s jeans and underwear and says, “Get on the bed.” 

“I thought you were going to make me work hard,” manages Eames, a little breathlessly, a bit of a twist to his kiss-swollen lips. 

Arthur grins at him and bites that stupid lower lip that he loves beyond reason. “Oh, we haven’t gotten to that part yet. On the bed, tiger.” 

“Now who’s bringing animals into the bedroom?” asks Eames, brushing past Arthur to settle himself on the bed. 

Arthur pounces on him and straddles him and pins his hands above his head and leans down and says, “Can you stay quiet?” 

“I have impeccable control,” says Eames, in what is both an obvious lie and an obvious taunt. 

Arthur chuckles and brushes his nose against Eames’s and says, “Bet I can make you fucking scream.” 

“What’s the bet?” asks Eames, and tries to kiss him. 

Arthur darts his head away, considering. “If I win, you have to tell Ellen tomorrow that there’s a possibility you’re long-lost nobility.”

“Okay. If I win, you have to tell Ellen tomorrow that there’s a possibility you’re a cat.” 

Arthur kisses Eames again, sharply. And then he drips his answer into Eames’s mouth. “You’re so on,” he says. 

“Have at it, kitten,” says Eames. 

_Smug bastard_ , thinks Arthur, fondly, and wins.


	149. Chapter 149

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who gave me fabulous "E" word guesses, but most especially in this chapter to GretaOto, consultingpiskies, and Gunther85 for "erection."

It’s Arthur who cleans up because Eames is too destroyed to do it. When Arthur finishes and stretches back out next to Eames, he wonders how much he’s smirking. 

It must be a lot, because Eames mumbles next to him, “You’re going to be insufferable about your win, aren’t you?” 

Arthur purrs in response. 

Eames’s laugh is startled at first, and then it grows, until it’s a full-fledged laughing fit, and it’s honestly much louder than anything they just did, much more likely to be overheard, and it’s delightful. He rolls to sprawl himself over half of Arthur, and Arthur pets his hand through Eames’s hair and Eames nuzzles at his shoulder. 

Eames says, “I think we both win.” 

“I don’t deny we both win, but you’re the one telling Ellen about your viscount past tomorrow.” 

“And it will just make me more dashing to our adoring fans. Thank you for the E & A.” 

“Don’t thank me for having sex with you,” Arthur says. 

“Mmm, but you’re so good at it,” says Eames sleepily, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense in response to Arthur’s comment, but Arthur can tell that Eames is drifting. 

Arthur, meanwhile, doesn’t feel sleepy at all. He keeps carding his hand through Eames’s hair and looks up at the ceiling. 

“You’re not tired?” Eames blurs out into Arthur’s skin, after a while. 

“You can go to sleep,” Arthur tells him. 

“What’s keeping you up?” 

“Do you think Julia has a more interesting sex life than us? I cannot for the life of me come up with something appealing for ‘e’ in ‘E & A.’”

“Well. There’s the obvious ‘erection.’” 

“Oh,” says Arthur. “Huh. Well, now I feel like an idiot.”

“That is definitely not what’s keeping you up,” says Eames. “Don’t you think things are going well with our parents?”

Arthur smiles. “Really well. Honestly, don’t worry about me. Go to sleep. I’m just wired from the nerves earlier today.” 

“We’re both blessed with nice parents,” Eames yawns. “I don’t know why you were nervous. I knew it would go well.” 

“I’m happy they seem to get along. You might think it’s terrifying, but I think it’s nice.” 

“No, I do, too,” says Eames. “Always nice to have more family. I meant to tell you, you know. If you’re too tired to banter with me, you don’t have to. You can just say, ‘Not now, Eames,’ and send me off.” 

“Is this about me being a cat again?” 

Eames chuckles and shifts so he can see Arthur. He’s apparently retreated from his sleepiness. “No, this is about when we talked on the phone, when I was at the airport. I wanted to banter with you about the GPS and I could feel the effort it took you to come up with a bon mot in response. And you can just say, you know, ‘Eames, I’m not in the mood right now.’”

“Usually,” Arthur confesses, “making the effort gets me in the mood. I mean, I usually feel better when I’m bantering with you. It’s why I make the effort. It grounds me and helps me feel better.” 

Eames looks at him, brushes his hair back off his forehead, and says softly, “Is this really your favorite place you’ve ever lived?” 

Arthur tilts his head in confusion. “Of course it is. You must know it is. You designed it for me.” 

“I know, but I don’t want you to like it because you know I wanted you to like it and you don’t want to hurt my feelings. I want you to like it because you really—”

“I like it because it’s the most perfectly, beautifully, brilliantly designed house I’ve ever been in and I think everyone must be incredibly jealous that I get to live here. I like it because everything about it feels like this perfect blend of you and me. I like it because I think, if you take us out of it, people would still walk in and be able to sense that two very happy people live here together. I have seen a lot of your designs, and this house has always been my favorite one.” 

Something about the way Eames is looking at him seems fragile in its hopefulness. “Yeah?” 

“Yes,” Arthur confirms firmly, nodded for extra emphasis. 

Eames says, “Good. I really wanted it to be. I mean, I wanted to—after you spent all that time and effort finding me this perfect house, I wanted to give you the perfect design back—”

“It’s perfect,” Arthur promises him, “but it’s perfect because it’s me tempered with you. That’s what makes it perfect. And I’m sorry I never told you explicitly how much I love it. This is why I worry about how I’m so fucking needy all the time and I never stop to think that you have insecurities, too—”

“That’s not true. Look at how lovely you were just now. And, as I keep telling you, you’re not needy,” says Eames. 

“I’m needy enough that I keep making you tell me how I’m not needy.” 

“Darling, you’re just a person who likes to hear ‘I love you’ out loud. That doesn’t make you needy.” 

Arthur hesitates. He says, “Yeah, but I like to hear it out loud a lot.”

“That’s fine,” says Eames. “I am happy to oblige. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” He punctuates each _I love you_ with a little kiss, lifting his head to plant them over Arthur’s face. 

When he finishes, Arthur smiles at him, follows it up with a kiss of his own, and then snuggles into him. 

“Go to sleep, kitten,” Eames tells him. “Big day tomorrow.” 

“Don’t call me that in public,” Arthur warns him. Because honestly he doesn’t mind it so much—although he probably wouldn’t mind anything Eames called him in that tender tone of voice—but he thinks it would be weird in public. 

“Never,” says Eames. “It’s part of our sex code now.” He slings an arm over Arthur to tuck him in closer. 

And Arthur knows he’ll wake up pushed to the side of the bed because that’s how Eames is when he sleeps, but he has him for now and he presses his nose into his skin and falls asleep.


	150. Chapter 150

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going away again this weekend and SOMEHOW THIS FIC STILL ISN'T DONE I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Anyway, I will see you on Monday. Have fantastic weekends! :-)

He wakes before Eames in the morning, with a start of alarm, listening to a noise somewhere in their house. And then he remembers that they have guests. Jetlagged guests. Who are apparently already up and about. Arthur wonders if their kitchen is self-explanatory enough. He is being a terrible host. Even if it is only 7 am. 

He rolls himself out of bed and forces himself into the shower. And then he dresses on the casual side for him: a pair of jeans that he bought because he likes the way his ass looks in them and he’s nothing if not immodest about the way he looks, a dark-gray-and-white-checked button-down shirt, and a pale gray vest. He’ll probably add a tie and a coat for the Ellen appearance later, but for the trip to Giacomo’s this morning, he doesn’t want a ton of clothes to remove. 

Eames is snoring in their bed when Arthur gets out of the bathroom. It is so early that if he woke Eames now, Eames would tell him, appalled, that it’s the middle of the night. So Arthur leaves him in bed and heads to the kitchen. 

Which smells divine. 

His mother is sitting with Maggie at the breakfast counter, sharing the newspaper and drinking out of mugs, and Albert has found the griddle pan that Arthur knew they had somewhere and is efficiently, with the use of _just that one pan_ , making bacon and eggs. 

He catches sight of Arthur first, smiling at Arthur. “Good morning, Arthur! Care for a fry-up?” 

“That sounds possibly like the best thing I’ve ever heard,” says Arthur, in what is not at all an exaggeration because his mouth already watering. 

Albert gives him a smart little salute that reminds Arthur of Eames. 

Maggie says, “We didn’t wake you, Arthur, did we?” 

Arthur shakes his head and lies easily, “Not at all. How’d you sleep?” There’s a barely touched pot of coffee that Arthur pours himself from. That must have been his mother. The tea accoutrements are out, so he assumes Eames’s parents are drinking tea. 

“Fantastically,” enthuses Maggie. “Who was in charge of picking out the mattresses?” 

Arthur chuckles as he brings his coffee over to the breakfast bar with him. “That was Eames.” 

“Well, they are divine,” Maggie says. 

“I agree,” says Arthur’s mother. 

“You look quite smart, Arthur,” Maggie tells him. “As usual.” 

“I like to make sure Giacomo knows I appreciate his efforts,” Arthur says. 

“And also you look smart every day,” Maggie says knowingly. 

“Is Eames still sleeping?” his mother asks him.

“Yeah, he’s a late sleeper. We won’t see him for hours. We might be back from Giacomo’s.” 

“I am _so_ excited for the trip to see Giacomo,” says Maggie, practically bouncing, all Eamesian enthusiasm. 

“I hope it’s not too boring,” Arthur says, because he has no idea what Maggie’s built it up to be in her head. 

“I think it’s going to be fascinating. I’m making Albert come along so that he can see where your suits come from, too, and we can tell the whole village together.” Maggie beams. 

Arthur is saved from having to come up with a response to that by Albert sliding a plate in front of him. Arthur says immediately, “Oh, no, I shouldn’t be first,” and slides it over to his mother. 

“Nonsense,” she says, and slides it back to him. “You’re the growing boy.” 

“Really not anymore,” Arthur tells her. 

“Hush,” says Maggie. “Don’t you dare tell your mother she’s old, Arthur!”

Arthur looks alarmed. “Oh, that’s not what I meant!” He looks at his mother in chagrin. 

She just smiles at him and sips her coffee and says, “Eat your breakfast.” 

Arthur does. Arthur eats blissfully unaware of anything going on around him. Arthur finally comes up for air when he’s mopped the plate clean and he finds himself the object of everyone’s eyes. 

“Um,” says Arthur self-consciously, and then says to Albert solemnly, “That was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. And I can’t believe you made such a tiny mess to get _that_ as the result.” 

“Arthur,” says his mother carefully, “it’s possible you two need a cook.”


	151. Chapter 151

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to ladyprydian and kate_the_reader for reminding me what A&E stands for in England!

It is decided that everyone will go with Arthur to Giacomo’s. Arthur leaves a note to that effect for Eames-- _All of us at Giacomo’s. See you soon. –A._ with a little heart because, fuck it, he’s not going to let Eames be the only romantic one—and is in the process of ushering everyone out the door, grabbing the metallic knit suit where he left it hanging in their coat closet in preparation for precisely this trip. 

Maggie pauses by the whiteboard still perched on the floor and says, “Did you do that schedule?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur confirms. “We’ve got a lot of moving parts, I wanted to make sure we kept it all straight.” 

Maggie keeps staring at the whiteboard, hesitating. Outside, Arthur can hear his mother telling Albert that they’ve had a lovely spring so far. 

Arthur glances at the whiteboard and back at Maggie. “Something wrong?” 

“What’s this for?” Maggie asks, and then points to Arthur’s scribbled _A & E_ all over the whiteboard. 

“Oh, it’s just, like, us time. To remind us to still make time for us.” Arthur can feel the tips of his ears reddening in embarrassment. “I know it’s silly but I didn’t want us to ever be in a situation where we were, you know, running around all day and forgot to ever, like, talk to each other, never mind enjoy each other. I feel like when you hear about couples breaking up, they say that they grew apart and fell out of the habit of making time for each other and so I wanted to be proactive about it.” Maggie is looking at him with a faint smile on her face. Arthur imagines she is thinking that he is a hyper-scheduled and overanxious idiot. “And I know you’re thinking that I am being ridiculous and I even schedule our free time together but—”

“Arthur and Eames,” she interrupts him. “That’s what it stands for?”

Arthur tips his head, confused. “Well, yeah.” 

And then Maggie starts laughing uproariously. “Albert!” she calls out the door Arthur’s still holding open. “Albert, it stands for _Arthur_ and _Eames_!” 

“Oh!” Albert exclaims from outside. “That makes so much more sense!” 

“What—” Arthur starts in bewilderment, and is distracted by Eames dragging himself into the kitchen. 

He is dressed and his hair is damp so apparently he showered but he still looks like it is an enormous chore for him to be awake. He blinks at his hysterical mother. “What’s wrong with her?” 

“Eamesie!” she says around fits of laughter. “ _A_ and _E_.” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at Eames. 

Eames cocks his head at her and then says, “Oh,” and yawns enormously. 

“Oh?” 

“It’s what we call emergency rooms in England. A & E.” 

“Oh, Arthur,” Maggie manages, “I thought you had planned out all of this time for hospital visits. Which, mind you, Albert and I both agreed that that is only wise when you live with Eamesie.” 

“Accidentally staple-gun yourself once and nobody ever lets you forget it,” mutters Eames. 

Arthur actually loves the staple-gun scar, so he smiles at that.

Maggie says, now regaining her composure, “I’m sorry, Arthur. I didn’t mean to laugh so hard. I think it is incredibly sweet and wise of you to schedule couple time. You should listen to him, Eamesie.” 

“I always listen to him,” says Eames. “Are you going somewhere?” 

“Giacomo’s,” Arthur answers, and indicates the suit bag slung over his shoulder. 

“Oh, right.” Eames yawns again. “Everyone’s going?” 

Arthur nods. 

“Then I am going to rely on my impressively responsible boyfriend and go back to bed for a bit,” announces Eames. 

Maggie tuts at him. 

Arthur says, “I’m going to make you answer the lion’s share of the promo questions today then.” 

“Deal,” Eames says, and leans forward to brush a quick kiss over his lips. 

“Go back to bed, you lazy ass,” Arthur murmurs, and kisses his cheek. 

Eames catches him by the back of his neck before he can move away and whispers, “See you, kitten,” in his ear and then kisses his earlobe.


	152. Chapter 152

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Brunettepet for suggesting pictures with Giacomo!

Arthur made an appointment with Giacomo. He knows that Giacomo generally drops everything when Arthur wanders by and it’s obnoxious of him to do things like that, so he carefully made the appointment, so Giacomo is expecting him. 

Giacomo is not expecting the entourage that comes in with him and for a second Giacomo looks curious and then his eyes light upon Arthur’s mother and he says, “Oh, are you Arthur’s mother? Glorious woman, you have instilled your son with the most impeccable taste.” He kisses both of her cheeks enthusiastically. 

Arthur’s mother blushes, because it is another trait they share, the bothersome blushing. His dark hair and eyes come from his father, but he used to say, proudly, that he got everything else from his mother. She says, “Oh, I…didn’t do much, that’s just…him.”

“Nonsense, I got it all from her,” Arthur says warmly. “And these are Eames’s parents,” he tells Giacomo, gesturing to Maggie and Albert. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” says Giacomo. “I recognize Mr. Eames’s smile in his mother’s face and his twinkle in his father’s eyes.” 

Maggie laughs merrily as she accepts Giacomo’s kisses on her cheeks. “I’m sorry that I failed to instill my son with impeccable taste.” 

“Eames has a very definite sense of style,” Arthur says loyally. “It’s just unique. Because Eames is supposed to stand out.”

Maggie beams at him. “Ah, Giacomo, now you see why we love Arthur so much.” 

Giacomo smiles beneficently and Arthur blushes.

“Can we have a photo?” Maggie asks, brandishing a camera that she pulls out of her bag. 

“A photo?” echoes Giacomo, sounding confused. 

“When Arthur came to visit us, his clothing caused an absolute sensation. Everyone would go wild to see a photograph of the famous Giacomo who was the source of all of them.”

“I really don’t do much,” Giacomo says. “I just tailor him.” 

“A good tailor is worth his weight in gold,” says Arthur’s mother firmly. 

“And don’t think I haven’t noticed that suddenly you carry a great many colors and patterns and styles that you know would appeal to me,” says Arthur knowingly, because he’s been noticing for a while that it seems to him Giacomo always knows exactly what to put into his hand to make him fall in love and have to buy it. Giacomo is a good tailor but he’s also a very good salesman. 

“It’s all your style,” says Giacomo. “I just enable it.” 

“Eames would tell you that enabling is very important,” says Arthur. 

“Yes, he would,” Maggie agrees. “Arthur, get in the picture with Giacomo. Show off your waistcoat. Laura, you get in the picture, too.” 

“We’ll frame it and hang it on the wall of the pub,” says Albert. “You’ll have to sign it, Giacomo.” 

They pose together, smiling, and then Arthur says to Giacomo, amused, “That is quite an honor, because there isn’t even a photo of Eames in their pub.” 

“His head is big enough,” asserts Maggie without hesitation. 

Giacomo laughs and says, “Are you here for the grand finale?” 

“We can’t wait,” Maggie says. “We’re going to boo and hiss at Alec Hart.” 

“Oh, God,” says Arthur in alarm. 

“Okay, not really,” Maggie allows. “But we’ll be hating him very hard from our seats.” 

“Silently,” adds Albert, because Arthur must still look worried. 

“This is why it is better to view from the privacy of your own home,” says Giacomo. “I boo and hiss at him all I want. Now, Arthur. Is everyone to get a preview of your finale suit?” 

Arthur nods and goes into the backroom to change into it. When he comes back out, Giacomo’s actually drawn curtains over the front window. 

“The backroom would be too crowded with everyone in it,” Giacomo explains, “so I’ll tailor you out here.” 

“Fine,” agrees Arthur. “But why the drawn curtains?” 

“We wouldn’t want paparazzi leaking your new suit, now would we?” 

“Paparazzi,” echoes Arthur. “I would never have thought about paparazzi.” 

“You should. You’re a celebrity,” says Giacomo, and then to the assembled parents, “You must be so proud of both of them.” 

But the parents all seem to be too fixated on Arthur’s suit to respond. 

Maggie speaks first. “Arthur, what a glorious suit,” she says, sounding awed. 

Arthur looks at himself in the mirror and tries to resist preening but it is a gorgeous suit and he looks good in it and, well, he fucking loves it. “Isn’t it?” 

“It was a gift from Mr. Eames,” says Giacomo, who clearly wants to impress upon the parents how nice Eames is. 

So Arthur helps him. “And, as Giacomo knows, Eames buys me so many gifts, he’s responsible for half my wardrobe.” 

Maggie laughs a bit. “So he _can_ buy nice things, he just chooses not to.” 

“He just likes different things,” Arthur says. “He likes to stand out and so he dresses accordingly. I like to blend in and so I dress accordingly. And he knows what I like and I know what he likes and so we try to buy accordingly.” 

“Blend in?” says Maggie. “In a suit like that?” 

Giacomo laughs delightedly and wags his finger at Maggie. “Like your son, you call Arthur’s bluff. Arthur likes to stand out more subtly. He wants you to have to look twice. If you look twice, you’re rewarded with him. If you don’t, you fail the test.” 

“Well,” says Arthur. “It’s not quite that harsh.” 

“Eamesie passed the test?” asks Albert, and he asks it with a tease in his voice, the way Eames would. 

Arthur smiles at his reflection in the mirror, as Giacomo tugs at various hems on the suit and makes little notes, and he thinks of how Eames always claims he loved him at first sight. Arthur has always supposed that, actually, as Giacomo suggests, it was second sight; it was just that the second immediately followed the first. “Yeah,” Arthur says. “He did. And if we’re going to analyze to that depth the clothing I wear, we should at least do the same for Eames.” 

“Does he have analysis beyond thrift-store?” asks Maggie. 

Arthur laughs. “Yes. Eames likes the focus to be on his designs. Which he could do by dressing very conservatively but then everyone would think him dull and uninteresting and never want to hire him. So Eames catches your attention, and then you think, ‘What could his designs possibly look like?’ and then when you see them you realize that they defy all expectation, because he’s set you up for that.” 

“You actually make Eames’s clothing sound clever and appealing,” remarks Maggie. 

“That’s basically Arthur’s job when it comes to Eamesie,” remarks Albert. 

Arthur laughs again. “It’s just that I’ve had a lot of experience in trying to justify Eames’s wardrobe choices.” 

“I have offered many times to dress Mr. Eames,” says Giacomo, sitting on the floor next to Arthur’s left leg, “but he always insists that Arthur is supposed to be the one that looks good.”

“He’s an idiot,” says Arthur fondly, and glances over his shoulder at the parents, saying, “Giacomo insists on calling him ‘Mr. Eames’ because he says British people are formal.” 

“Well, they are,” says Giacomo, amused, but Arthur isn’t paying attention because he’s noticing how his mother has wandered off, is deep in the forests of ties and suits and shirts and fabrics that spill through the back of Giacomo’s store. 

Arthur draws his eyebrows together thoughtfully and turns back to Giacomo. “Giacomo,” he says. “If I put a rush order in, and paid accordingly, could you get me some more suits done by the finale?” 

Giacomo looks up at him in confusion. “Don’t you want to wear this one? It looks fantastic on you and it will catch the television lights—”

“I’m happy with this one. What about tailoring these suits for a woman? Could you do it?”

Giacomo shrugs a little. “I could try. It might not be perfect but—”

“Mom?” Arthur calls. “Pick out some pieces. Giacomo is going to tailor you a suit.” 

His mother’s head pops out from between two racks. “What?” she says. “Arthur, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Pick something out,” Arthur says mildly. “Albert, you should pick something out, too.” 

Albert says to Giacomo in amazement, “You’ll tailor regular-looking people like me? Not just high-fashion models like Arthur?” 

Giacomo smiles at him kindly. “Of course.” 

Albert goes scurrying off immediately, saying to Arthur’s mother, “Laura, you have taste, what would you recommend?” 

“Maggie, Giacomo only does men’s suits, but he can tailor them to look like you just stepped off a Paris runway,” Arthur says. 

“Well,” Giacomo hedges, “I hope so. Maybe. I’ll do my best.” 

“I’ll pick a suit if you help me,” Maggie says, after a second. 

“Deal,” Arthur agrees, and turns back to Giacomo. “I think you can do it,” he says encouragingly, a little anxious now. He’d made the decision on a whim, knowing that his fashion-conscious mother who spent all of her time buying beautiful clothes for other people would love the treat and would never be so extravagant on her own, and guessing that Albert and Maggie would, too, but now he’s worried he’s pushed Giacomo into it. 

“Arthur,” says Giacomo drily, “for the amount of money you spend here and the amount of publicity you give me? I’ll get it done.” 

“Thank you,” Arthur says fervently. 

“We’re done here,” Giacomo says, sitting back. “You can take it off and I’ll get the changes made.”

By the time Arthur’s changed back into his clothes, he comes out to his mother standing in front of the mirror. She’s picked a brown ensemble with the faintest thread of gold through it, and Giacomo doesn’t say anything about the amount of tailoring it’s going to need, he is simply going to work on the pinning around her. And she looks glowing with delight. 

“I haven’t had anything tailored for me since my prom dress,” she tells Giacomo. 

“You’re going to look so magnificent, you’ll steal the spotlight,” Giacomo tells her. 

She catches sight of Arthur watching and says, “But, Arthur, you really don’t have to—”

Arthur shakes his head to cut her off. “Enjoy it.” 

“See, most people would wear evening gowns to a fancy Hollywood event,” remarks Maggie. “I love the idea of Laura and me going in suits. Defy expectations, is that what you said about Eamesie’s designs, Arthur?” 

“Exactly,” Arthur agrees. “Giacomo will work wizardry on the suits.” 

Giacomo grimaces a little. “I hope so. They were cut for a man, so I’ll do the best I can.” 

“I really have confidence,” Arthur says, borrowing a page from Eames’s book, because he knows that when Eames says, _Yes, we can do that_ , somehow his teams usually seem to find a way. 

Giacomo notices the Eamesishness of the statement, too. He says, “You sound like Mr. Eames.” 

“It’s possible,” says Arthur, “that he’s finally rubbing off on me.”


	153. Chapter 153

“We should get hats,” Maggie is saying to Arthur’s mother, as he walks them back to the house. “Not Alec-style hats. But still, I think hats could be fun. Unless you think hats are out of fashion?”

“Not all hats are out of fashion,” muses his mother, “and it would be interesting with our suits. I’ll have to think about it. What do you think, Arthur?” 

Arthur says, “It would have to be the right hat. But it definitely cannot be a fedora.” 

Maggie laughs and then says, “You two are so chic, you’re like a Paris fashion magazine spread right there.” 

Arthur looks at his mother, who blushes and says, “Maggie, I’m just wearing jeans.” 

Which she is, but like everything he’s ever seen his mother wear, she’s wearing them with flair. And Arthur never gets to enjoy other people making a well-deserved fuss over his mother, so he says, “Couldn’t she have been a model?” and winks at her when she gives him an appalled look. 

“And Maggie could have been a singer,” Albert says. “She sings like an angel.” 

Arthur’s heard Maggie sing, because she can be coaxed to do it at the pub if she’s had enough to drink, and he knows Albert’s right. “Well, never too late,” Arthur says. “We’ll all have second careers.” 

“I want a second career as Maggie’s groupie,” says Albert, giving her an extraordinarily Eamesian leer. 

And Maggie actually gives him an eyeroll in reaction. Arthur has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. Maggie says, “Like I want _old_ groupies.” 

Arthur’s mother says, “I’ll send some model friends your way from the Paris runways,” getting into the swing of Eamesian banter. 

Maggie says, “Now you’re talking.” 

Arthur’s mother says, “I didn’t know you sang, Maggie, you’ll have to sing for us.” 

“Got to get some liquor in her first,” Albert says. 

“We’ll have to get drunk over the boys’ baby pictures,” says Maggie merrily. 

Arthur had almost forgotten about the baby pictures. “Oh, God,” he says. 

“Baby pictures tonight,” Maggie decides. 

Arthur makes a mental note to check if they have enough wine in the house to handle baby pictures. 

Maggie says, “Arthur, your town here is so pretty.”

It’s really not. Maggie and Albert live in a picture-perfect postcard British village. Arthur and Eames live in a dingy downtown that has mostly been abandoned in favor of the suburbs. It had once been lovely, it’s true, but it needs a bunch of sprucing up. Most of the businesses are out of business and most of the residential spaces are empty. Arthur and Eames are active in neighborhood improvement measures and are trying to lead by example and Arthur is actually fiercely proud of their little city because that city has been very good to them and he feels like its inhabitants are actually protective of their celebrity, like Giacomo with the curtains in the windows that morning. But not even Arthur would describe it as “pretty.” 

But he says, “Thank you, Maggie. We like it.” 

Maggie says, “Where do you live, Laura?” and he listens to his mother talk about her life, apparently un-self-consciously, without worrying what Maggie will think. Eameses are like that, Arthur thinks, they’re just incredibly easy to talk to. 

Maggie says, “We’ll have to go shopping, all of us, at a place that’s not a tailor’s. Albert especially could benefit from some personal style.” 

“I was going to say that your style is lovely, Maggie, but you have a point about Albert,” says Arthur’s mother. 

It’s a joke, and everyone laughs, and Arthur actually gives her a startled and delighted look, because how-how-how is this going so fucking _well_? 

Maggie immediately shouts for Eames once they enter the house, and he calls back from the living room. 

“Arthur bought us suits,” Maggie says. 

“Wait until Rupert sees my new suit,” Albert says. “He likes to walk around all high and mighty just because his cousin’s got some fancy Bentley. What beats a fancy tailored suit, I ask you?” 

“Very little,” Eames says gravely, and lifts an eyebrow in Arthur’s direction. “New suits?” 

Arthur shrugs a little. 

“You should get a new suit, too,” Maggie tells him. 

“Not as much my area as Arthur’s,” Eames reminds her. 

“And Arthur filled us in on your thoughts regarding fashion,” Maggie says. 

“My thoughts regarding fashion?” echoes Eames. “I would love to hear what those are.” 

“They’re a secret,” Arthur says. 

“A secret even from me? But they’re my thoughts.”

“Yeah, but you seldom understand your own thoughts,” Arthur replies. 

“He is cheeky and hideous, did he torture you all morning?” Eames asks his parents. 

“Laura picked me out this cunning purple shirt,” says Maggie. 

“Did she?” asks Eames. “And how did you like Giacomo?” 

Arthur doesn’t hear the response, because Arthur’s noticing how quiet his mother is. Not that he blames her, because Eameses are overwhelming and Arthur’s had plenty of practice but his mother less so. She’s staring fixedly at nothing in particular, like she’s lost in thought, and Arthur says gently, a little worried, “Hey. You okay?” He’s thinking he might come up with a reason to get her some alone time, if she’s feeling stretched too thin by the unrelenting friendliness of Maggie and Albert. 

She looks at him and says in amazement, “This is what you do. Every day.” 

Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that. It isn’t really. Because he almost never has his mother in town and this is the first time Eames’s parents have ever visited. He glances over his shoulder at the tangle of Eameses. Albert and Maggie are bantering with each other now. Eames lifts a querying eyebrow at Arthur, clearly asking if everything’s alright, and Arthur nods once briefly and then turns back to his mother. He says, “What?” because he’s really not entirely sure what she’s talking about. 

And she says, “You just…be happy, every day, that’s what you do,” and then she startles him by pulling him into a tight hug. 

“Oh,” he says in surprise, and hugs back. “Yeah. I do. You…knew that, didn’t you? That I’m happy?” 

She nods against him. “Knowing it and seeing it are two different things. I wasn’t ready to…Thank you for my suit.” 

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “You don’t need to thank me. I mean, thank you for giving birth to me.” 

She laughs against him. “You don’t need to thank me for that.” 

“Exactly,” Arthur says. 

After a second, his mother moves away and smiles at him and says, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.” 

“You didn’t,” Arthur says truthfully. 

“I think I should go get another cup of coffee,” she says. And then she calls, “Maggie? Albert? Eames? Do you want me to put the kettle on for tea for you?” 

Three Eameses say yes. Two Eameses head into the kitchen after her to make sure she doesn’t need any help. 

One Eames sits on the couch and looks at Arthur and says, “Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and collapses onto the couch with him. “I think she’s happy.” 

“You sound like you had a lovely morning.” 

“You know me,” Arthur says lightly. “Always happiest when surrounded by good clothes.” 

“You basically made my father’s life. You are going to be his favorite from now on.” 

“Well, you should have thought to have Giacomo do a suit for him before this. I hope our mothers’ suits come out. It’s a lot to ask of Giacomo, but I’m hoping he has secret reserves he’s going to call on for assistance. I hope. It was maybe a bad idea.” 

Eames kisses his temple and says, “Stop. If Giacomo can’t do it, it’s not the end of the world. Call him later and clarify that, if you’re feeling nervous. And you’re a very good son. Here.” He slides a piece of paper onto Arthur’s lap. 

“What’s this?” Arthur picks it up. 

“Confirmation from Saito, reminding us how much we can say about the new show and what we agreed to talk about and what’s off limits.” 

On the table is, among other standard things, their relationship, past and present. Off the table is the future of their relationship, because neither Arthur nor Eames wanted to answer marriage questions. As far as the new show, they can say nothing other than teasers about “something big” coming. Arthur and Eames put together the list, so nothing on it is anything new. 

“Also,” says Eames, “I have no idea why you sent me that e-mail, but I know, I know, I love you, too.”

Arthur, after a second, laughs. “I forgot about that e-mail. I was watching _Love It or List It_ while I waited for my mother. They had a marathon on yesterday.” 

“You watched it willingly? I thought you hated watching yourself on television.” 

“It was illuminating,” says Arthur. “We’ve come a long way.”

“Nowhere near the end,” Eames tells him. “Still plenty of road in front of us.” 

“I know. Just pleased at how far we’ve gotten. How much wine do we have in the house?” 

“We always have a lot of wine in the house,” says Eames. “Why?”

“They want to do baby pictures tonight.” 

“Oh,” says Eames. “We don’t have enough wine in the house.”


	154. Chapter 154

The network doesn’t just send them a car to take them to the studio to film their remote interviews. The network sends a limo. 

“Oh, look,” says Eames blandly. “There’s room for everyone to tag along.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at Eames, as Maggie and Albert and his mother pile into the limo. 

“I may have asked Saito if it was unreasonable to ask for a limo,” Eames admits. “But come on, look how excited they are. And you bought them all bloody suits this morning, let me have a turn at being the good one.” 

“Do we spoil our parents?” Arthur asks. 

“It’s possible,” says Eames, and ducks into the limo with them.

Their parents are so excited the entire limo ride that Arthur is delighted Eames had this idea. 

When they walk onto the set with their parents and introduce them to Julia, Julia says, “Oh. My. God.” 

“Yes,” says Maggie drily. “That is frequently how we are greeted when we meet people who know Eames.” 

“I need to give everyone hugs,” Julia announces, embarking on a flurry of embraces, “because Arthur and Eames are my _favorites_ and I have you to thank for that. Well, mostly Arthur is my favorite. Eames is a jerk a lot of the time.” 

“Julia is a compulsive liar,” says Eames. “Two-thirds of everything she says is a lie. You can’t believe anything she says.” 

Julia grins at him and says, “Sit down so I can make you look attractive. He doesn’t use enough moisturizer, you know.” Julia says it to Eames’s parents like they raised him incorrectly. 

“Oh,” says Maggie, a little taken aback. 

“But Arthur’s skincare regimen is _divine_ ,” Julia informs Arthur’s mother. 

“It isn’t a contest,” says Arthur, a little embarrassed. 

“A contest for who’s hotter between the two of us?” demands Eames. “Of course it is a contest.” 

“Let’s call it a draw,” Maggie suggests. 

Eames looks appalled. “Mum! You’re supposed to be on my side!” 

“But Arthur is very attractive,” Maggie says mildly. 

“You’re totally the popular one,” Eames grumbles at Arthur. 

Which gives Arthur pause, because Arthur has never been the popular one, ever in his life. He stares at Eames, blinking, trying to process the accusation. The popular one? Between the two of them? Even as a joke it’s…

“It’s because Arthur is the gentleman,” Julia informs Eames. As if Arthur being the popular one is, like, an _actual thing_. 

“I am also a gentleman,” Eames protests. 

“Eamesie, do you torture this poor girl?” asks Maggie. 

Everyone seems to have simply moved on from Eames’s proclamation. As if nothing earth-shattering occurred. Arthur looks at all of them, bantering away with each other. 

“Eamesie?” laughs Julia. “Aww, isn’t that sweet?” 

“We call him that because he won’t let us call him by his name,” says Maggie. 

“Which is?” prompts Julia. 

“A closely guarded secret,” answers Eames. “Julia, why don’t you tell everyone how Arthur and I introduced you to the love of your life?” 

“You keep getting way ahead of yourself,” Julia tells him, “but yes, they did play matchmaker.” 

“She’s dating Paul,” Eames explains. 

“Paul from the show?” asks Maggie. “How delightful!”

“Do you know Paul?” asks Julia. 

“Not yet,” says Maggie. “But he seems lovely from the show.” 

“He’s very nice,” says Julia. 

Arthur listens to the swirl of the conversation all around him, all of these people talking and laughing, and all of them are part of his life, friends and family and people he loves and people who love him back and think he’s _popular_. 

His mother says, sounding amused, “Remember when you were a little boy and you used to tell me that you didn’t want to have any friends and you were fine by yourself and you didn’t want all those people around us?” 

Arthur remembers. How could he not remember?

“Liar,” she says fondly. “Look at the family you’ve assembled for yourself, and look how happy it makes you to have people around.”

It’s true. Arthur glances at the knot of Eameses and Julia again. They seem to be talking about Eames putting makeup on a sheep when he was a child.

Arthur smiles and says, “But I think it had to be the right people.”


	155. Chapter 155

“Kalinda!” Eames exclaims when he sees her. “How have you been? Do you like Arthur’s suit today?” 

Kalinda grins. “It’s very nice. Are you two going to behave or should I have the porn music ready to go?” 

“Kalinda, please meet my parents,” says Eames. 

Kalinda laughs delightedly and says, “Hi,” shaking everyone’s hands. “These are my favorite boys because I’ve only directed them once so I haven’t had time to be annoyed by them yet.” 

“We are extremely charming,” protests Eames. “Surely we have that reputation.”

“Men who go around proclaiming how charming they are are seldom charming,” remarks Kalinda, smiling. “Now go get settled in front of the camera.” 

“I still don’t know what I think about you, Kalinda,” Eames tells her. 

Kalinda laughs and shoos them away. 

They’re doing remote promotional interviews for a few of the larger markets’ newscasts’ entertainment segments, for _Access Hollywood_ , and for Ellen, who agreed to the pre-filmed remote segment based, they were told, on her love for design. She’d been enthusiastic about Eames’s designs the first time they went on her show, but that hadn’t surprised Arthur at all because he doesn’t understand how anyone couldn’t be enthusiastic about Eames’s designs. 

They start with the entertainment segments, because they’re the quickest. 

“ _Next Big Thing_ has been a runaway phenomenon,” says the first interviewer from her studio in some city far away. “Did you know it would be such a huge hit?” 

“No,” answers Arthur. 

“Well, we knew we had a good idea for a show and some fabulous contestants,” Eames says, “but we didn’t know it would turn out to be appointment television.” 

This is why Eames is better at promotion than he is. 

“A lot of the success actually comes down to the judges, wouldn’t you say?” asks the interviewer with a devilish smile. 

“Look, I do not blame America to wanting to tune in to anything where they get to see Arthur wearing a suit,” responds Eames easily. “That is, after all, basically my life and, America, you should envy me.” 

“Tell us about Alec Hart,” says the interviewer. “No love lost between you and Alec, Arthur, is there?” 

It’s a direct question and Arthur doesn’t want to be a coward and let Eames field it so he says, “I’ve enjoyed the challenge of working with Alec.” He knew he was going to be asked about Alec and he thinks that this is a fairly neutral thing to say. 

“But you won’t be working with him in the future?” teases the interviewer. 

“I’ve got an on-screen partner already and I’m pretty happy with him,” says Arthur. “I’m not looking for a new one.” 

“Aww,” says the interviewer, as if Arthur is very sweet. 

Eames says, “I pay him a lot to say things like that.” 

“It’s a sizeable monthly check,” Arthur deadpans. “Otherwise I’d never be able to put up with him.” 

Eames laughs. 

The interviewer says, “So we hear you have a big announcement for the future. Any hints?” 

“Just that it’s big,” says Eames, and holds his hands apart about the size of an erect penis and waggles his eyebrows. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

And it goes on like that for a while. The interviewers all ask the same questions, and by the end Arthur and Eames have their response routine perfected. Eames’s invisible erect penis gets bigger and bigger with every interview, so that by the end he’s flinging out his arms exaggeratedly and almost hitting Arthur. Arthur keeps downgrading his level of happiness with Eames. “Fairly happy.” “Somewhat happy.” “A little bit happy.” But he does it with a smile, his dimples showing, and Eames falls into a habit of kissing his dimples after he says it and saying things like, “Don’t believe a word he says, he’s ecstatic with his on-screen partner. Who’s your on-screen partner, darling?” and “That’s what I like to hear from a boyfriend. I think people aim too high when they say they want to make their significant others anything more than ‘reasonably happy,’” and “Arthur’s saving his full euphoria for Sebastian Stan.” 

“You’ve got a break before _Access Hollywood_ ,” Kalinda says, when Arthur has lost count of how many times they’ve performed their little act. “Eames, thank you for keeping that as G-rated as I take it you ever get.” 

“See? I can behave,” Eames says. “I am fabulous to work with. I am so fabulous to work with, Arthur _fell in love with me_.” 

“It’s really sad that you are entirely the wrong type for me,” Kalinda tells him. 

“Dashing and debonair?” says Eames. 

“Male,” says Kalinda.


	156. Chapter 156

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to cosmogyral_mad_woman, flosculatory, and entrecomillas for reminding me that Ellen loves to giver her guests gifts and for having such great suggestions. I don't actually watch Ellen with any regularity so be kind to this chapter, heh.

Arthur thinks leaving the Ellen segment until last was a bad idea, because he’s tired. He always forgets how exhausting he finds promotional stuff. He thinks he knows, thinks he braces himself for it, but it’s always so much more tiring than he remembers. It’s almost worse that Eames loves it so much, seems to gain more manic energy as his promoting day wears on. Arthur tends to lean on him heavily during interviews, and it’s worse the more tired he gets, and Arthur wishes sometimes Eames were less easy to lean on because then it would force Arthur to push himself a bit harder. 

As it is, Ellen greets them over the camera with much more enthusiasm than Arthur can hope to muster on his very best days, never mind at the end of a million identical interviews.

“Wave to the audience, guys,” Ellen says, gesturing to the studio audience behind her. 

Of course Eames waves very energetically, like he’s trying to flag down a fucking airplane from the other end of the runway. Arthur manages a little flutter of his fingers like an idiot. 

“Now,” says Ellen, getting down to business. “I was so excited to have you guys on my show. I mean, of course, you’ve got this big hit going on, it’s a really great show, whatever. Let’s talk about me.” 

The studio audience laughs heartily. Eames laughs heartily. Arthur manages a little smile. 

And then almost falls off his chair when Ellen says, “Arthur, when are you going to find me a house?” 

“Oh,” Arthur says, caught completely off-guard. “I…didn’t know I was supposed to be finding you a house. Am I supposed to be finding you a house?” 

“Only _every episode_ of your show I say to Portia, ‘We need to hire Arthur to find us a house and then Eames to decorate the house.’ So. When are you coming over?” 

“When are you sending us plane tickets?” asks Eames. “Arthur here loves the sun, he’d love a trip to California.” 

“Oh, so you’re saying I have to pay you?” Ellen makes a dismissive motion with her hand. “Never mind, I’ve lost interest.” 

There is more laughter from the audience. 

Ellen says, “So you two have been here before.” 

“We have,” Eames affirms. 

“And were you a couple then?” Ellen looks between them, eyebrows uplifted. 

Eames glances at Arthur and smiles and then looks back at Ellen. “We weren’t. I had to wear him down.” 

“I can understand that, Arthur,” Ellen says. 

“He can be a bit much to take,” Arthur agrees solemnly. 

“Don’t let him fool you, he adores me,” says Eames. 

“He’s okay,” says Arthur, and shrugs exaggeratedly. But he tempers it by flashing Eames some dimples. 

“Arthur, I have a question that will prove the true depth of the love between you two. Are you ready? Get ready for it.” 

“I’m ready,” Arthur says, bracing himself.

“Do you know Eames’s first name?” Ellen asks. 

Arthur laughs, relieved by the innocence of the question. “I do.” 

“And what is it?” 

“A closely guarded secret,” Arthur answers, which is the standard answer when it comes to Eames’s first name. 

“Aww, that’s why I love him,” says Eames, and winks at him. 

“Really serious question now,” says Ellen. 

Arthur braces himself again, assuming that sooner or later there is going to be a question about Alec, but Ellen says, “Arthur. We’ve got to talk about your sex club.” 

And Arthur doesn’t deny it. Because nobody ever seems to fucking believe him when he denies it. So Arthur thinks, Fuck it, and plays along. “The dues are really expensive.” 

Ellen looks surprised to have him playing along but rolls with it. “Oh, are they? See, I was worried about that. Any chance of getting some kind of discount?” 

Eames shakes his head. “Arthur runs a tight ship.” 

“I mean, Ellen,” says Arthur, deadpan, “I don’t want to run the Sam’s Club of sex clubs, you know what I mean?” 

That gets a laugh from the studio audience. 

“You can get some good deals at Sam’s Club,” says Ellen in mock seriousness. 

“You get what you pay for,” says Arthur. 

“Look at his tie, Ellen,” says Eames. “His tie alone is worth full-price admission, am I right?” 

“I’m not quite the relevant audience,” says Ellen. 

“I am,” says Eames, “so you have to trust me on this.” 

There’s an enthusiastic whoop from someone in the studio audience. 

Ellen says, “Someone else is also in the relevant audience.” 

“She’s on my payroll,” says Arthur. 

“Sex club promotion is hard work,” Ellen remarks. 

“Tell me about it,” says Arthur. 

“Hard work,” says Eames. “Very, very, you know, _hard_.” 

Ellen gives him a mock-horrified look. The audience seems caught between groans and laughter, with some people giving up and throwing in a light smattering of applause. 

Arthur shakes his head and says, “He always goes for the low-hanging fruit.” 

Eames says, “So to speak,” and waggles his eyebrows. 

“That’s not a double entendre,” Arthur says. “He thinks everything is a double entendre.” 

“Wait, let me try,” says Ellen. She schools her face and then says, “Property taxes,” in a smarmy tone of voice and waggles her eyebrows. “Not bad, huh?” she says, as the audience applauds with delight. 

“That was excellent,” Eames praises her. 

“Getting back to the point, I like to give my guests presents that, you know, I know they’re going to use.” Ellen is leaned forward, tugging a large gift bag forward around the couch she’s sitting on. “Usually we play games with people and stuff, but you’re not here so we didn’t get to do games, we’ve got to fix that next time. But we’re still going to give you some presents. And don’t worry, we’re going to splurge and send these to you in the mail, you don’t even have to pay, it’s going to be free of charge.” Ellen pulls out the gift, saying, “Now what we’ve gotten you—” but trails off as the audience starts laughing and then bursting into applause. 

“Aw, how lovely, darling,” Eames says, “look at her thinking of us.” 

“You bought us sex toys, Ellen,” remarks Arthur. 

“Arthur!” Ellen chides him. “You have a filthy mind! These are not sex toys. These are containers to store your bananas in.” 

“Our bananas?” repeats Arthur, and lifts an eyebrow. 

“Arthur. There’s that filthy mind again.” 

“He owns a sex club, Ellen,” Eames explains sadly. “You can hardly blame him.” 

“Well, we just thought that you guys like fruit. Who doesn’t like a good banana, am I right? Other than me, of course. And look, we had them personalized for you. Can you zoom in on this here?” 

One is labeled _For Arthur’s Next Big Thing_ and the other is labeled _For Eames’s Next Big Thing_. 

“We are going to get so much use out of those,” says Eames. “Thank you so much.” 

“I thought you would like them. What’s next for you boys?” 

“Big things, apparently,” says Arthur. “Lots of them. Banana-shaped and otherwise.” 

“Oh, good,” says Ellen. “You’ll let me know when you use those, right? I want to make sure they really work with your bananas.” 

“I’m sure my banana will—” begins Arthur, and then wonders why the fuck he is saying this. “I want you to know that my mother is literally standing right over there listening to me talk about my banana.” 

“Is she? Hello, Arthur’s mother, your son is a very nice man. He has a bit of a filthy mind, you might want to get that checked out, but he’s otherwise really nice. Loves bananas.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, aware he is blushing. 

“I’m a really big fan of the filthy mind,” says Eames, “it doesn’t need to be checked out.” 

“No, you’re okay with it?” clarifies Ellen. 

“Totally okay. Probably better than okay. I mean, you should see how many bananas we eat in our house.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Arthur. “So what kind of house are you looking for, Ellen?” 

Ellen smiles at him and says, “Thank you for playing along with me.” Then she turns to the audience. “If you don’t watch their show, it’s called _Next Big Thing_ and Arthur and Eames are actually very talented when it comes to home design and they’ll be giving us tips live during the two-hour finale extravaganza next week and thanks for stopping by and chatting, you are always welcome, but next time bring me a new house.” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Arthur says suddenly, as he remembers, “Eames has one last thing to say.” 

Eames looks startled. “I do?”

Arthur cocks an eyebrow at him. 

“ _Oh_ ,” says Eames, and turns back to the camera. “Yes. For what it’s worth: there’s a possibility I’m long-lost nobility.” 

After a second, Ellen says, “Okay, then. Say good-bye to Arthur and Eames, everybody.” 

They wave and say bye in response to the studio audience and Kalinda tells them they’re clear and Arthur collapses onto Eames’s shoulder and complains, “Oh, my God, worst interview _ever_.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses his head and says, “Are you kidding? I told you you were her favorite, Ellen bloody adores you.” 

“Good job, guys,” Kalinda says. “I look forward to enjoying inappropriate banter with you in the future.” 

Arthur lifts his head up and says, “Thank you, Kalinda.”

“Thank you, Kalinda,” Eames echoes. 

Kalinda waves her hand and pauses on the way out to say good-bye to their parents. As they’re disentangling their microphones, their parents engulf them. 

Maggie says, “Your jobs are incredible. Everything about that was so much fun.” 

Albert says, “Sexual empire magnate, I really am so proud.” 

Arthur looks at his mother, who just shakes his head at him and smiles and says, “This is exactly where I thought you’d end up after you told me you wanted to be a real estate agent.” 

And the reality of his life really is so delightfully absurd that all Arthur can do in response is laugh.


	157. Chapter 157

When they get back to the house, Arthur calls Giacomo and tells him not to be stressed out if he can’t get it all done and they’re definitely not expecting miracles. Giacomo assures Arthur that he immediately called in a number of favors and the clothing is all in good hands and yes, he promises he will make sure that he charges Arthur a bit more for all the trouble and Arthur, he says, is the only client he has who worries that he doesn’t pay enough. 

That settled, Arthur and Eames decide to take everyone out to dinner at their regular Italian place, because neither one of them has any clue what to do for dinner other than go out to eat and maybe, they tacitly agree, this will distract their mothers from the baby-photo idea. They’re given a tucked-out-of-the-way table at the restaurant and they order a ridiculous amount of wine and a ridiculous amount of food and they talk about interviews and getting used to interviews and knowing what to say and what not to say. 

Arthur has had a lot of wine by a certain point and so he says, “I am fucking terrible at interviews, but it’s okay because I get to do them with Eames and Eames always charms the fuck out of everybody at interviews.” 

“That is so not true,” Eames says. 

Arthur gives him a look. 

“Well, the part about charming the fuck out of everybody is true,” Eames allows. “But, you know, not the rest of it. You’re very good at interviews.” 

“I thought you were hilarious with Ellen,” says Maggie loyally. 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, feeling himself blush again. “I don’t even know what I was saying with Ellen.” 

“Let me know when you get the banana holders in, I might be interested,” says Arthur’s mother. 

The Eameses almost fall out of their chairs laughing but Arthur wonders madly how much his mother has had to drink and also if he can scrub the surface of his brain. 

They walk home after dinner. It’s a typical spring night, cool and somehow damp without being misty. 

Arthur holds Eames’s hand as they walk and says, “It smells like green,” because he loves spring. 

Eames brushes a kiss into his hair and squeezes his hand. 

Maggie says, “Eames, what was that long-lost nobility thing about?” 

Eames says, “Oh, Arthur won a bet.” 

“You _lost_ a bet,” Arthur corrects him. 

“That’s what I said,” Eames says. 

“What was the bet?” asks Albert. 

“A really good bet,” says Arthur, and kisses Eames’s cheek because he’s in that kind of mood. 

“You know, you could be long-lost nobility,” Albert remarks. 

“Are you royalty?” asks Arthur. “Please let me be fu—”

Eames kisses him. 

“Oh,” Arthur says, thrown off. “That was nice.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Eames. 

Maggie says, “How, pray tell, could he be long-lost nobility?” 

“I’m just saying, Maggie, that I have heard, you know, rumors about your great-grandmother.” 

“Rumors about my _great-grandmother_?” says Maggie. 

“Was she one of the prince’s mistresses?” asks Arthur’s mother. 

“What prince?” asks Arthur, confused. 

“Any prince,” says Arthur’s mother. “That was a thing, you know, Arthur. In the old country.” 

Eames makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a muffled snort of laughter. Arthur narrows his eyes at him. 

“I don’t know about the prince,” says Albert, “but there was stuff about her with—”

“Albert!” exclaims Maggie. “How do you know rumors about my _great-grandmother_? Are you saying that my Gammy was the illegitimate daughter of some duke?” 

“See, you knew exactly which great-grandmother I’d heard the rumors about,” notes Albert. “And maybe there were other people in your family like her. The nobility could have come from way back. You don’t know.” Albert shrugs. 

“Fascinating,” says Arthur’s mother. “I wish we could dream up anything half as interesting for your background, Arthur.” 

Eames says, “Wow, wasn’t the food tonight delicious?”

Maggie says, “I’m glad you brought that up. Do you boys cook anything at all? Or do you just survive on takeaway?” 

Eames and Arthur are guiltily silent for a second. 

Then Arthur says, “Sometimes Eames makes raw cake batter. It’s full of bacteria, but pretty good.”


	158. Chapter 158

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to flosculatory and pureimaginatrix for the naked Eames idea!
> 
> And thanks to deadgloves for the stuffed sheep idea!

“Well,” Eames says as they walk into the house, “this was a very eventful day—”

“You think Laura and I are going to forget that we’ve planned to look over your baby photos tonight,” says Maggie, “but we have definitely not forgotten.” 

“I forgot!” Laura says. “Let me run and grab them.” 

“I’ll get mine, too,” Maggie says, and they walk off together. 

Arthur says, “Fuck, we need more wine for this.” 

“No more wine,” Eames says. “In fact, look at this lovely glass of water I’ve poured for you.” 

“You didn’t pour it,” Arthur points out. “You just turned the faucet on. You, like, fauceted it. But I don’t think that’s a word. But that should be a word.” 

“It should be. Enjoy the water. He didn’t grow up in a pub,” Eames says to Albert, who’s watching them with amusement. 

“No, I just grew up in a regular apartment,” Arthur explains for Albert’s benefit. “But I really _wanted_ a house. That’s why I went into real estate.” 

Albert smiles at him. “And look at the house you ended up with.” 

Arthur shrugs. “That’s Eames,” he says. “I ended up with Eames. The house came with him.” 

“I have my advantages,” says Eames, and kisses the tip of his nose. 

Maggie and Laura arrive back in the kitchen with photo albums. 

Arthur says, “Photo albums! I haven’t seen photo albums in forever!” 

Maggie goes first, showing them page by page photos of baby Eames growing into adult Eames. Arthur is fascinated. He didn’t get to see these on his visit, mostly because he hadn’t felt exactly comfortable enough to demand them. But now he doesn’t know why he didn’t, because there is nothing even vaguely embarrassing about them. Eames was a beautiful baby who grew into an adorable child. He is smiling in every single picture, wall-to-wall grins, blinding, so similar to the unclouded grins Arthur gets today, whenever Eames isn’t leering or teasing. His hair was blonder than it is today, almost a white-blonde, but it still stuck up messily all over his head and he always looks like he’s in the middle of doing something wrong. Not that he ever looks guilty, but there always seems to be some chaotic mess around him that he was doubtless the cause of. 

“He was always getting into mischief, bless,” says Maggie fondly. “I would turn my back for one second and he was knocking over everything that he could.” 

“You’ve always loved a mess around you,” remarks Arthur, and kisses Eames’s shoulder because it’s the nearest part of him. 

Eames is leaning over Arthur so that he, too, can see the pictures. He says, “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t remember, of course.”

“What’s your earliest memory?” Arthur asks, because he can’t remember if he knows this or not. 

“It’s Chauncey, actually,” Eames says with a smile. 

“Is it?” says Maggie. 

“Chauncey?” says Arthur. 

“He was this dog that one of our neighbors had. He used to wander all around the neighborhood. Sweet dog, he died when I was still quite wee. But I remember sitting in the back garden and Chauncey licking me and you came out, Mum, and sort of waved him away. I couldn’t have been more than three.” 

“That dog adored you, he was always very concerned I wasn’t paying close enough attention to you,” remarks Maggie. “He used to come and stand in front of me and look at me gravely, like, ‘Your son is playing in the dirt again. Do you know this? Have you approved this?’”

“That’s so sweet,” says Arthur, ridiculously charmed. 

“What’s your earliest memory?” Eames asks. 

Arthur considers, thinking back. “My grandmother feeding me. I must have been really little, because I was really little when she died.” 

“I didn’t know you remembered her,” his mother says, because it’s true that they barely talk about her. 

Arthur nods. “Here and there.” 

“Awww, look at little Eamesie!” coos Maggie, as they arrive at a photo of a very naked Eames. 

Granted, Eames is still young enough in the photo that it’s the sort of thing mothers try to get away with. 

“Okay,” Eames says, and flips the page. 

Maggie laughs. “That was during the phase when you refused to wear any clothes for, like, a month straight.” 

“You’ve always been an egotist,” remarks Arthur. “Is this why you wear such ugly clothes? Because you hate clothing so much?” 

“It’s to make sure you think I look better out of my clothes than in them,” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows. 

“Let’s stop talking about this,” decides Arthur. “Not appropriate.” 

Eames mock-growls and bites his ear because that’s just how mature Eames is. 

Maggie is still flipping the pages of the photo album. Eames grows up before their eyes, getting older and older. The rosy childishness of his pout slowly grows into the illegally sensuous curve of his lips that he has today. His face loses all pudginess and settles into its edges. Stubble makes its appearance, including an ill-advised attempt at a moustache that Arthur dissolves into hysterical laughter over. 

“Like you never had a facial hair mishap when you were just starting out,” Eames grumbles good-naturedly. 

“Never, ever,” Arthur says, looking down at the photos fondly. “And Christ, what were you doing with your hair?” Because now they’ve reached a phase where Eames’s hair is shoulder-length. 

“I was experimenting,” Eames says. 

“You look like you should have been starring in ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar,’” says Arthur. 

“I was feeling my way through my calling to become a divine being in the design world,” says Eames. 

Arthur snorts. 

Maggie says, “Why don’t you tell Arthur why you ended up having to chop your long hair off?”

“Goodness,” says Eames, trying to close the photo album. “I think it’s time to look at Arthur’s baby photos.” 

“Why did he chop it off?” Arthur asks Maggie, now desperately curious, as Maggie resists Eames’s efforts to move on. 

“He got it full of tar,” Maggie says. 

Arthur, after a second, says, “ _Tar_? What were you doing with tar?” 

“I was going through an artist phase,” Eames defends himself. “Mixed media. The tar was for an installation piece I was working on. I didn’t know it was going to be so… _sticky_.”

Arthur laughs at him and shakes his head. 

The photo album ends, surprisingly to Arthur, with a picture of him with Eames, taken in the Eameses’ back garden in England during Arthur’s visit. There is nothing remarkable about the photograph. Arthur has lots of photographs of him with Eames, and he’s only truly fond of a few of them, because he usually thinks they look stiff and posed together, even in the family photographs. This one is not especially different. They’re both in chairs, sitting next to each other, smiling for the camera. Eames’s head is tipped ever so slightly in Arthur’s direction; Arthur is looking at the camera straight-on. Their smiles are genuine and sincere and happy but also clearly someone said to them, _Smile, we’re taking a picture_ ; they are not the organic smiles of an interrupted banter session, which tend to compose Arthur’s favorite photographs of them. 

Maggie says, “Ah, and there’s where Eames’s story ends so far. To be continued.” 

And so they turn to Arthur’s.

His mother opens up his baby photo album, and there is Arthur as a baby, all fluffy dark hair and wide dark eyes. There is, unexpectedly, a picture of him with his father. Arthur had almost forgotten that picture existed. It is the only picture he has of him with his father. There were a couple in the house of his parents together, that he uncovered during a phase when he was snooping desperately for any information about his father. He is long since past that phase; his father left when he was only a few months old, and Arthur looks at his baby pictures and wonders how you leave something as tiny and helpless as he was, and then never even turn back to see how that little baby had turned out. But there he is, on his father’s lap. His father is smiling in the picture, as if he is delighted with his infant son, and Arthur thinks how his father was the best actor Arthur’s ever seen. 

His mother must also have forgotten the picture was there, because she turns the page hastily and no one comments on it, and luckily it’s immediately followed by a picture of him with his grandmother. She is smiling right at him, clearly trying to get a smile in response. He is frowning at her as if he fears for her sanity. 

He is frowning in most of the baby pictures. And he is always looking into the distance like there’s something coming that he was waiting for. It’s been a while since Arthur sat and looked at photos of himself as a child but now he thinks, Yes, he was always waiting for something. It turned out to be all of this that he has now, and who would have known? 

Eames says, “Darling, look at that little furrow with that little frown. I’m glad you’re more dimples these days,” and kisses where Arthur’s right dimple would be. 

“He was a very serious child,” his mother says. “I was never as good at making him laugh as you are, Eames.” 

“Ah, you have to be very silly and ridiculous in the service of making Arthur laugh,” explains Eames. “You are right, Laura, to retain your dignity.” 

“No matter how it happens,” says his mother, “it’s nice to see him laugh.” 

There’s an undercurrent of lurking regret, and Arthur looks at the serious toddler in the photos and thinks, _Why couldn’t you have smiled and made your mother happy once in a while?_

He smiles more as he gets older. In fact, he transitions so that the photos are nothing but smiles. But they are not full smiles with delighted dimples. Arthur is keenly aware of that. Eames’s smiles in his baby photos were miniature mirrors of his grown-up smiles, but Arthur’s smiles are mere shadows. He’s smiling for the camera because he knows he’s supposed to; smiling for his mother because he doesn’t want her to worry. 

Surely Eames can tell that the smiles aren’t full smiles but Eames just says, “Darling, your glorious hair.” 

“It’s floppy and horrible,” Arthur says, embarrassed, looking at the long waves of it tumbling over his forehead. But Eames would love it because Eames loves it best today when it flops foolishly all over his head. 

There’s a picture of him with his mother, still young enough to be cuddled on her lap. She looks tired but happy, her lips resting in his hair. And another picture of him sitting on the couch, book open, looking impossibly young to be reading. It’s not that great a picture of him, because his hair is forward and covering his eyes, so his mother turns the page, but Eames stops her. 

“Hold on a moment,” Eames says, “can I just…” and flips the page back and leans over the photo. And then he says, “Darling, is that a stuffed sheep next to you on that couch?” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, because _really_?

“Oh, that is Shep,” says his mother. “Arthur adored Shep, Arthur took Shep everywhere with him and refused to be separated from him. Arthur couldn’t sleep without him.”

“Aww,” says Maggie, like that’s adorable. 

Arthur says truthfully, “I don’t remember that at all.” 

“You were very, very young,” his mother tells him. “By the time you were in school, you were already over him. Not that you were fickle about it. You just grew up.” 

“Darling, you were always a little shepherd!” exclaims Eames in delight. 

“I was never a shepherd, Eames,” Arthur corrects him patiently. “I was a little boy with a stuffed animal.” 

“Definitely a shepherd,” says Eames. “Laura, is Shep still around?” 

“I’m sure he’s somewhere,” his mother shrugs. “I haven’t looked for him in years.”

“That’s okay,” says Arthur, turning the page. “We don’t need him.” 

He’s startled by a sudden jump in the timeline. There he is, graduating from high school. Except he’s not wearing a robe. He still has the mortarboard on his head, the tassel dangling in front, but he’s dressed in a suit. It’s a very simple, straightforward, unexciting suit but he remembers it with a huge pang, because he still has that suit, in a corner of his closet that he hasn’t thought about in a while. 

“Arthur’s first suit,” says his mother affectionately. 

“A very excellent graduation gift,” says Arthur, and kisses her blushing cheek. 

“Look at the smile on your face,” says Eames. “You would reserve that smile for fashion.” 

It’s true that it’s a much more genuine smile than any of the previous ones in the book, but it wasn’t because of the suit. Although he’d been thrilled beyond belief with the suit, which he’d known his mother had saved for forever. But he was graduating high school, about to start college. He’d worked hard to get a scholarship and he’d felt like he was in the cusp of an entirely new life. And no longer would his mother try to refuse the help he could offer her. 

Arthur says, looking at the picture, “I was going to go out into the world and make my fortune.” 

Eames rests his chin on his shoulder and says, “Look. You did exactly that.”


	159. Chapter 159

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would Boston work for the purposes I have Arthur and Eames using it for here? I have no idea. But we shall make it work. :-)

Eames is awake when Arthur walks out of the bathroom the next morning. Arthur knows this because Eames says, “Darling.” 

Only Eames can make _darling_ sound thunderous like that. 

“Yes, Viscount?” replies Arthur, disappearing into his closet to study his wardrobe choices. 

“Someone set an alarm. Someone set _multiple alarms_.” Eames sounds incredibly offended. 

Arthur bites back his laugh, which he knows will offend Eames even more than he’s already offended by the act of being awake, and selects a shirt and a pair of pants. “That was me.” 

“Bloody hell,” Eames complains, “you were _drunk_ last night, and you still managed to set all of these alarms before bed?” 

“I was mostly sober by the time we went to bed,” Arthur reminds him, pulling his pants on. He leaves his shirt unbuttoned and pulls a tie off its perch and heads out into the bedroom. “Thanks to you. Thank you.” 

“I would not have sobered you up if I’d known you were going to torture me with alarms. _Multiple alarms_.” 

“We have to be in Boston in two hours,” Arthur says, sitting on the bed to put his shoes on.

“Why don’t I just send you in my stead?” asks Eames, shifting so he can curl his way around Arthur, a hand on his abdomen between the open panels of his shirt, a lazy peck of a kiss to his clothed thigh. “Whenever anyone asks you about me, you can just say, ‘Eames is very sexy and funny and the best boyfriend ever.’”

“You’re not funny, though,” Arthur deadpans. 

“You treacherous liar,” says Eames without heat, and rests his head on Arthur’s thigh and closes his eyes. 

Arthur lets them sit in silence for a second, because it’s nice. But eventually he says, “I have to finish getting dressed. And you have to start.” 

“What if I just give all the interviews naked?” asks Eames. “That would be very popular with the interviewers.” 

“Because you know I get very jealous if anyone but me ever gets to see this tattoo here,” Arthur says, reaching a hand out to rub at the Art Deco-inspired design just under the curve of Eames’s rear. 

“I’ll be sitting the whole time,” Eames points out. “They’ll only see the front of me.” 

“Oh, by all means, that’s okay, I like to show off the _front_ of you,” rejoins Arthur. 

“Exactly. I knew you’d see it my way.” 

“Get dressed,” Arthur says, dropping a kiss onto Eames’s forehead, “before I choose an outfit for you.” 

“The horror,” says Eames. “You’ve already subjected me to multiple alarms. Now you’re going to make me wear tasteful clothing?” 

“I am cruel and ruthless,” says Arthur lightly, extracting himself from Eames and standing. 

“And yet you look so mild-mannered in your striped shirt,” remarks Eames, who still doesn’t look any closer to getting out of bed. 

“The stripes are pink,” Arthur notes, as he buttons the shirt and rolls the cuffs.

“That is not making you look crueler and more ruthless,” replies Eames. 

“Misdirection,” Arthur says, dealing with his tie. 

“The key to a good con,” says Eames. 

“Indeed,” Arthur agrees. “I will go entertain our guests. You will get dressed. Then we will all go to Boston.” 

“I hope you have all of this scheduled on the whiteboard,” says Eames. “Otherwise I do not acknowledge it as being valid.” 

“Get dressed,” Arthur says for, like, the fiftieth time that morning, and then he heads to the kitchen, where his mother offers him coffee and Albert offers him another luxurious breakfast and Arthur adds to the whiteboard, _A. entertaining guests. E. getting dressed_ above the _Boston_ heading. 

***

Their promotional schedule for the day is print interviews. They could have insisted on doing them by phone, Arthur supposes, but he prefers to do these things face-to-face, and there are enough writers in and around Boston to pull it off that way. The schedule is a blend of more local media, like _The Improper Bostonian_ , and national print, like _People Weekly_. And, of course, the bigger websites, as well as a local blog that was one of their very first devoted fansites in the early days and which Arthur and Eames are always sure to spare time for. 

“It should only be a couple of hours, really,” Arthur tells all of their parents, “depending on how much Eames behaves himself.”

“I always behave myself,” says Eames. “I’ll behave myself so much that we’ll be done in ten minutes.” 

Arthur ignores him, handing a folder over to his mother. “I’ve given you some information on things you might want to do in Boston to kill the time while you’re waiting. Then, when we’re done, we’ll come meet you and keep being touristy with you.” It’s the Eameses’ first time in Boston and they’re excited about all of the sights. 

His mother takes the folder and glances through it and says, “We’ll confer about what they’d like to do.” 

“Don’t worry about us,” Maggie says. “We are going to have a blast. Have fun at your interviews.” Maggie flutters kisses onto Eames’s cheek and then Arthur’s. 

Albert says, “Hey, Arthur, where are all the good sex clubs?” 

Arthur says, “That’ll have to wait for after the interviews, you’ll need my password to get in. And a retina scan.” 

Albert laughs and claps his shoulder and says, “He is funnier than you, Eamesie.” 

“A comedian,” Eames agrees. 

Arthur looks at his mother, who has a strange look on her face as she watches the interaction. But everyone is right there and he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable so he leans over to kiss her cheek and just says, “Have fun. You’ll be fine, right?” And he hopes she understands how seriously he means the question. 

“Always,” his mother says. “Go be a celebrity.” 

“Which is so much less glamorous than you think,” notes Arthur. 

“Only because Arthur’s all weird about signing girls’ breasts,” says Eames. 

“Oh, my God, that doesn’t happen,” says Arthur. “Let’s go.” 

They wave to their parents and walk in the opposite direction as them on the busy sidewalk. The network asked them to choose where they wanted to do the interviews, and Arthur wanted a centrally located spot that wasn’t too over-the-top, so they’ve gone with a boutique hotel on Beacon Hill that was happy to lend a cozy fireplace nook. 

Arthur says, “There is no way you are going to behave yourself if you are already talking about breasts.” 

Eames says, “Hang on, can we duck into this alley?” 

“Wait, _what_?” says Arthur, exasperated. “What are you—”

Eames tugs him into the alley and kisses him. It’s not overly inappropriate but it’s more of a kiss than Arthur would have expected on a public street, so he’s glad Eames tugged them into the alley, and he also appreciates that Eames is keeping them both clear of the dingy, dusty wall, tucking Arthur up and against him. 

“Hi,” Arthur says, when Eames draws back. Sometimes Eames just randomly kisses him like that; Arthur is aware that he is the luckiest person in the world that he doesn’t even question that. 

“You made them a fucking folder of things to do in Boston. I bloody adore you.” 

“Oh,” Arthur says, feeling the blush. “I just wanted them to enjoy themselves—”

“I know. That’s why I bloody adore you. Okay.” He kisses the bridge of Arthur’s nose. “Now that you’ve been well-snogged, let’s go charm some reporters.”


	160. Chapter 160

The interviews are all short and sweet and to-the-point. Arthur keeps them to their schedule because that’s his job. He says things like, “We’re out of time,” and Eames says things like, “So tragic, didn’t that just fly by, what a shame we can’t chat for longer,” in order to make everyone not hate them. Eames sips his way through several cups of tea and Arthur goes for club soda with a twist of lime because he doesn’t want to over-caffeinate. Eames also keeps working in that it’s possible he’s some kind of long-lost viscount. This always earns him an eyeroll from Arthur and way more interest than necessary from the interviewer. 

There are a few questions that are more interesting than others. _People Weekly_ , for instance, asks them a lot about their clothes. _People_ once did a sidebar on Eames’s sense of style, so Arthur supposes the continuation makes sense. His favorite question is about the fact that he’s become a Tumblr patron saint of gender equality and would he ever wear a dress, because then Arthur gets to explain that he doesn’t see why he wouldn’t wear the right sort of dress but he’s always preferred the snug, warm layers of a good suit, personally. Eames chimes in that Arthur is always cold and the suits keep him warm during the day and Eames handles that job at night, if you know what he means, eyebrow waggle. The interviewer is, predictably, charmed. 

Everyone wants to talk about Alec and Arthur really does think he and Eames have vague, neutral answers about Alec down to an art form. A few of the interviewers also ask about the contestants, and so he and Eames get to heap extravagant praise on them. One asks would they ever let Scott design a product for them, and Eames pauses and says, “You know. Actually. We need a whiteboard-like device for our kitchen,” and looks at Arthur with an excited epiphany in his eyes, and Arthur thinks that if anybody can come up with a writing surface that can satisfy Eames, it’s Scott. 

Their devoted fansite blog asks if Arthur enjoyed his time intruding on Eames’s specialty. 

Arthur says, “Yes, actually. I was nervous at the beginning because my background is real estate, as you know, and I wasn’t sure how much I had to offer when it came to judging designs. But I’ve really enjoyed myself and getting to see the level of imagination and creativity that all the designers had. Before this, I’d really only known Eames as a designer. It was really interesting to meet more and be exposed to other processes.” 

“And how does Eames compare?” the blogger asks, smiling between them. She shipped them before they shipped each other, Arthur thinks, and every time they encounter her he feels as if she beams with pride like their relationship is somehow her accomplishment. 

Arthur considers going for flippant and dry but he looks at Eames, in his horrible shirt, drinking his tea, and he says, much more seriously than he intended, “Well, you know, he’s the best.” 

Eames beams at him, his kid-on-Christmas-morning look, and Arthur would say that it makes clear that his response was the right one, except that Eames probably would have looked like that no matter what. 

The manager of the hotel sends over champagne on the house when they’re done, and they drink it so as not to be rude. Arthur texts his mother to see what they’re up to and reads her response and says to Eames, “They’re at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.” 

“Really?” Eames says, sipping at his champagne. “Was that in your folder of suggested things to do? You should have had them do that with us.” Because they both adore the Isabella Stewart Gardner. Eames is in love with the way the art is integrated into the design of the house and happily spends hours just studying the play of the light through the windows. Arthur just likes pretty things. 

Arthur says, “I really just put everything I could think of into the folder. But if you’re worried we’re not going to have family time together in the city, worry no longer, for my mother says we are all booked on a Duck Tour this afternoon.” 

“All of us?” says Eames. 

“Quack, quack,” says Arthur. 

“Very hot,” says Eames. 

“No,” says Arthur. “No, it’s not.” 

Eames leers at him in response. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

A young woman approaches them nervously, cell phone in hand, saying, “Sorry, I’m so sorry to bother you, I’m just a huge fan, do you mind if I take a picture?” 

Arthur isn’t exactly startled—they get recognized sometimes, by devotees, who are always very nice—but it never stops being disconcerting. Eames handles it in stride, waving over a passing waitress who agrees to take the picture. 

“What’s your name?” Eames asks the woman. 

“Sophie,” she responds, blushing beet red. 

“Sophie,” repeats Eames, and then they all smile for the camera, and then Eames says, “Thank you for being a fan, Sophie. Arthur and I appreciate it.” 

Sophie looks at Arthur and says in a sudden rush, “You’re actually my favorite. This is probably weird, but I really identify with you—I make a lot of spreadsheets, too, and I’m a little of a control freak, too—Not that I’m saying you’re a control freak, I’m just—I’ll stop talking now.” 

Arthur blinks in surprise. 

Eames, of course, is the one who collects himself first. “Never let anyone tell you spreadsheets aren’t devastatingly sexy, Sophie,” he says, with one of his easy Eamesian smiles. 

Sophie gives him a small pained smile in return, like she is horrified with herself, and Arthur knows that feeling well, and so Arthur says staunchly, “Control freaks are awesome. It’s okay to be a little of a control freak. You can still be happy and have fun while being your control freak self.” 

Sophie gives him a smile, tentative still but more genuine. “Find my Eames, right?” 

“No,” says Arthur. “I mean, yes, by all means, find your Eames, find someone to make you happy, but we get to be happy, too, just…by ourselves. We do. I promise.” 

Sophie’s smile is much wider. She says, “Thanks. Really. Thanks. Enjoy your days and—yeah.” She flees as if worried she might keep talking.

Arthur knows how she feels. “Oh, my God,” he says. “Did I just basically tell her to find herself and love herself and—”

“You’re incredibly sweet,” Eames interrupts him. “She’s going to go spread the secret of how sweet you are all over the Internet. Your cover as a vicious man in a pink striped shirt is going to be totally blown.” 

“I should have a show,” says Arthur, with a weak attempt at humor. “‘Trite Life Lessons with Arthur.’”

“You should have a show,” Eames agrees solemnly. “Oh, look, you already do.” Eames catches his hand and kisses one of his knuckles and says, “Shall we go collect our wayward parents now?”


	161. Chapter 161

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to thank Doctor_Tinycat, I think, for the suggestion that Scott design them a new whiteboard. 
> 
> Thanks this chapter to pureimaginatrix for reminding me that Duck Tour drivers are called con-duck-tors. 
> 
> Finally, I am socializing again tonight, so my schedule's going to be a bit off. You were welcome to kill time in the subreddit! http://www.reddit.com/r/HGTV_Verse

Arthur and Eames meet their parents at the Prudential, where they’re all supposed to be catching the Duck Boat. They are effusive over the museum. Maggie seems to desire to tell Eames all about every single painting in the museum in great detail, until Eames finally says, “I know. Arthur and I have been there lots and lots.” 

“Oh, of _course_ you have,” Maggie says. “Silly me. You’re both art lovers. Of course that’s why Arthur recommended the museum.” 

“I thought the arrangement of all the paintings and the way that the design of the rooms themselves really complement the art was very interesting,” remarks Arthur’s mother. “You must have a lot of thoughts on that, Eames.”

“I have entire encyclopedias of thoughts on that,” Eames replies. “We must save that for a longer conversation.” 

“It’s a shame about the stolen paintings, though,” says Maggie sadly, shaking her head. “I wonder who took them.” 

“In another life where I’m an art thief, it would have been me,” says Eames, and then waggles his eyebrows at Arthur, and Arthur is appalled that he knows that’s code for _I’ve read that fic_. 

Luckily it’s time to get on the Duck Boats at that point and everyone drops the conversational topic of Arthur and Eames and art thief AUs, or whatever the fuck Eames was hinting at. It’s a bright sunny day, and with sunglasses on Arthur feels comfortably anonymous, even if he is a little bit overdressed for a Duck Tour. He refuses to quack with the other tourists, but Eames—who graciously gave Arthur the window seat—leans over him to throw enthusiastic quacks to the people on the sidewalk. 

“Just a little quack?” Eames wheedles, grinning. 

“I save my animal noises for bed,” says Arthur. “And don’t think that doesn’t distress me to say.” 

Eames laughs and kisses him. 

Arthur’s never been on a Duck Tour before so he listens with interest. It isn’t much he hadn’t already known about the city, and it isn’t anything he hasn’t seen before in the city, and the tour is full of godawful puns that are right up Eames’s humor alley. But Eames sits with an arm casually flung out on the bench seat behind Arthur and he’s laughing and so are all of their parents and the sun is shining and Arthur has a perfect life. 

There’s a bit of a delay as the Duck Boat goes through the technical machinations that it needs to in order to turn into a boat. Albert is fascinated by this and seems to be explaining his understanding of it to Arthur’s mother. 

Maggie leans over from where they’re sitting behind Arthur and Eames, sticking her head between the two of them and saying, “It’s a little negative toward the British.” 

“I remember that from my first time around,” Eames says. 

Arthur looks at him in surprise. “You’ve done one of these before?” 

“When I first moved here.” 

“Really?” 

Eames lifts an eyebrow. “You sound so dubious. I was in a brand new city. I did all the touristy things.” 

“I can’t imagine you as a tourist. Aren’t you much too bohemian for that?” 

“Okay,” says Eames, “the driver was hot.” 

“Eamesie,” sighs his mother. 

“Makes much more sense now,” says Arthur. 

Eames grins at him. “Plus they call themselves con-duck-tors. Get it? Con _duck_ tors.” 

“I get it,” says Arthur. 

“Great pun,” says Eames. 

“Oxymoron,” Arthur rejoins. 

They are by now on the water, and the driver asks if anyone wants to volunteer to drive the Duck Boat, and Albert’s eagerness is so palpable that he is chosen. When he takes the driver’s seat, there is some good-natured ribbing about England, and then the driver asks, “And why are you visiting Boston, Albert?” 

And Albert says proudly, “I am here visiting my son and his boyfriend.” 

Arthur doesn’t know why that catches him off-guard. It is, of course, why Albert is there. But Arthur would have thought that Albert would have mentioned something about being in town for the live finale of his son’s hit television show, instead of being so obviously proud of just the very existence of Eames and Arthur for him to visit. 

“How nice,” the driver says. “I hope they’re giving you a proper city tour.”

“They are,” Albert says. 

“Are they here on the tour?” asks the driver. 

“They’re in the back.” 

The driver looks for them. Eames waves cheerfully. Arthur gives a smile that he’s sure looks like he’s got appendicitis. 

“Cover your ears, little ducklings,” says the driver, “I just need to check: Are you showing him all the right clubs, boys?” 

“My boyfriend has got that covered,” says Eames. “He’s a pro. Not literally.” 

“Lucky man,” says the driver, and then says, “Excellent time driving, Albert. Let’s give Albert a round of applause!” 

The woman sitting in front of Arthur is giving him a funny look. 

Arthur says, “I promise that I really don’t know anything about sex clubs.” 

The woman says bluntly, “You’re from that show, aren’t you?” 

“We are,” responds Arthur carefully, wondering if this is about to start something. 

The woman smiles and then immediately turns to her companion, explaining their show in excited terms. And then the news spreads all over the boat and then Arthur finds himself listening to Eames explain that no, no, Alec was before Arthur, he would never do that to Arthur. 

“Alec’s totally irrelevant,” announces one girl loudly from the front of the boat, and the people who watch the show all agree. 

Arthur thinks how little time he spends thinking about Alec anymore. Even when he’s thinking about the show, he’s never really thinking about Alec. Who would have predicted that?

When the tour ends, they pose for pictures with everyone who asks and they sign a few Duck Boat tickets and the driver asks hopefully if they’ll throw out a couple of tweets saying what a good time they had and then the woman who originally recognized them apologizes for causing a fuss and asks if they’d like a picture of all of them. 

So they pose all together in front of the Duck Boat, and then the woman gives them a wave and heads off with her companion and the momentary flurry caused by being recognized dies down. 

“Sorry,” Albert says, sounding chagrined. “I didn’t mean to cause all that.”

“Not a problem,” Arthur says, and realizes that he means it. That would get old quickly if it happened constantly, but it was kind of nice to just have people say _I like you and what you do_. No other real estate agent gets told that so bluntly, he thinks. 

Eames says, “That is our exciting celebrity life.” 

“Nobody asked you to sign any breasts,” Albert points out. “Frankly I was a little disappointed.” 

“Albert,” sighs Maggie, and something about her tone reminds Arthur very strongly of how he sounds when Eames is being an idiot. 

Eames must agree, because he suddenly catches an arm around Arthur’s shoulder and draws him in and kisses the side of his head. 

And then he suggests, “Dinner?”


	162. Chapter 162

They go to the South End for dinner and eat outside. It’s possibly begging to be recognized but Arthur is soaking up the sun and loathe to go into some dark, cool interior. Luckily, no one even seems to look twice at them, and they happily split pizzas and pastas and Arthur tries to convince them that the Freedom Trail really isn’t anti-British propaganda. 

Eventually they decide to go inside the restaurant to check out the ice cream selection. Arthur stays where he is to hold the table, and stretches out his legs and closes his eyes and lets himself bask in the sun, setting now, so that the shadows are stretching longer and coolness is nipping in. 

“You look like you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the universe right now,” remarks Eames. 

Arthur opens his eyes and sits up a bit so he can accept the ice cream cone Eames has collected for him. “I wouldn’t,” he says honestly. 

“You know,” says Eames, sitting beside him and going to enthusiastic work on his own ice cream in a manner that does not at all make Arthur think of fellatio, “we could move here, if you wanted.” 

The idea catches Arthur unprepared. He’s never considered it before. “Do you want to?” 

Eames shrugs and licks his ice cream with a swipe of his tongue. “Not particularly. But there’s nothing saying we have to stay where we are. If you want to move, we can discuss it.” 

“But I love our house,” Arthur says. “We’d never be able to afford anything like that in Boston, not even with our raise.” 

“True,” Eames agrees. “But I’m sure we could find something else. We’d have an excellent real estate agent, after all. And, darling, I’d design a million houses for you without blinking. You know that, right?” 

“I know that,” Arthur says. But it isn’t just the house. He thinks of Giacomo, and their regular Italian place, and the spa down the street that’s so sweetly understanding when Arthur comes in tense and on-edge because he lives with a crazy genius. He says, “I like where we live. I mean, if you don’t like it, we can, as you say, discuss it. But I like it.” 

“No,” Eames says, smiling at him. “I like it, too. I was just checking.” 

“Your capacity for self-sacrifice when it comes to me is alarming,” Arthur remarks. “I need to watch that.” 

“It’s entirely mutual, darling,” Eames replies. 

“Am I interrupting?” says Arthur’s mother, arriving back at the table with her own ice cream. 

“Not at all,” says Eames jovially. “We were just discussing the limitless possibilities for our future.” 

Arthur’s mother smiles but Arthur can’t shake the feeling that it’s a sad smile, like the odd smile she had on her face that morning. She says, “Funny. That’s mostly what your parents and I talked about today. Your parents are truly wonderful people, Eames. You’re very lucky.” 

“I am,” Eames agrees. “So’s Arthur.” 

“Very kind of you to say,” says Arthur’s mother. 

“And sincere,” says Eames. “I am not always slippery charm.”

“It’s true,” Arthur says. “He’s not, and he’s right. Very lucky.” 

His mother smiles at him, but it still seems reserved and it nibbles at Arthur unpleasantly. 

Eames’s parents return with their own ice creams and the conversation turns to a debate about ice cream versus gelato versus frozen yogurt. By the time they are finished with their ice creams, it is deep into twilight, and it is properly dark by the time they reach the car. 

“It was a lovely day, Arthur,” Maggie tells him as he maneuvers his way out of the city. 

“Good,” Arthur says. “I’m glad you had fun.” 

“This has all been so lovely,” Maggie continues. “Albert and I might just stay in America.” 

“You would be more than welcome,” Arthur says graciously, although it’s almost automatic, because most of his attention is on the road, and he doesn’t realize the full implications of it until it’s out of his mouth. 

He hesitates and glances at Eames but Eames seems unconcerned. Eames just says, “You’d have to give up the pub, though.” 

And Maggie says, “I know, and we couldn’t bear to do that.” 

“So you’ll just have to make a habit of coming to visit more often,” Eames concludes. “God knows we’ve got enough house to handle the guests.” 

Arthur glances in the rear-view mirror. All of their parents are gazing out the car windows at the passing traffic, but Arthur feels like his mother looks especially contemplative.


	163. Chapter 163

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to have left you guys on the cliffhanger-ish last night!

It was a long day of sightseeing and, for Arthur and Eames, of basically being celebrities, and everyone is tired by the time they get back and everyone besides Arthur drags themselves off to bed. Arthur stands in the kitchen for a second checking the whiteboard schedule for tomorrow. He and Eames have the judging of the library challenge, and because the set is locked down for fear of leaks, their parents can’t tag along. Arthur had some scribbled ideas for what they might do while he and Eames are working but he’ll have to check with their parents tomorrow. 

“Are you admiring your schedule?” Eames asks from the kitchen doorway. 

“Don’t pronounce it that way, you sound ridiculous,” Arthur tells him. 

“Shhhhhhhhhhedule,” Eames says, just to be a prick. 

Arthur heads out of the kitchen, shutting the light off as he goes, and says, “We really should get Scott to design us something. I think he’d love that and he’d be brilliantly creative and it would be awesome.” 

“Yeah,” Eames agrees, slinging an arm around his shoulders and kissing his head. “I’m going to get in touch with him.”

“Good,” Arthur says, and then, “I’m going to stop and talk to my mother for a second.” 

There’s a beat, and then Eames says, “Okay. Everything alright?” 

“Yeah. I just want to talk to her. I haven’t had much one-on-one time.” 

Eames’s gaze is searching, and Arthur can tell he’s curious, because frankly Eames is curious about everything and especially things involving Arthur. But Eames is also good about knowing when not to push, and he doesn’t push now. 

He says, “Okay,” and kisses where Arthur’s right dimple would be and goes into their bedroom. 

Arthur takes a deep breath and goes to his mother’s room and knocks lightly on the door. 

“Come in!” she calls. 

He pokes his head through the door. She’s still fully dressed, standing in front of the dresser mirror holding some clothes up in front of her. 

“Hello,” she smiles at him. “I was just choosing an outfit for tomorrow. Come in, let me hear your opinion.” 

He walks in and closes the door and watches as his mother holds two different shirts up for him. 

He says, “Tomorrow’s probably going to be a very casual day. I don’t really have anything planned for you while Eames and I are working.” 

“Then I will choose the most casual outfit,” his mother decides, laying the shirts on the bed. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Are you okay?” Arthur asks, because he figures he might as well just come out and say it. 

“Arthur,” says his mother, and she looks at him and smiles but it’s still the same sort of sad, melancholy smile. “Look at you. Look at how happy you are. Look at this life you have. How could I be anything other than okay, seeing you like this? I’ve always thought that you should be surrounded by people who think you are amazing, and look, you are.” 

Arthur says, “Is that why you applied to _Love It or List It_ for me?” 

His mother shakes her head. “I’m not talking about your celebrity, although God knows you have seemed to blossom into it. I applied to _Love It or List It_ for you because you were bored with what you were doing, but you didn’t know that there was a way to not be bored, and sometimes in those days you needed a bit of a nudge. But you seem better at that now.” 

“I think…” Arthur considers. He still needs nudges, and Eames is good at them, but he also thinks that his mother is right and he recognizes when he needs to nudge himself better than he used to. “I think I know myself better,” he decides finally. 

She smiles again, soft and sweet. “I think you do, too. And I think what you know is you’re not really happy because you’re a celebrity, as much as you’re happy because you like your job, celebrity or not. And because you have Eames, and Eames makes you happy. And you have Eames’s parents, and they are such nice people, Arthur, who absolutely adore you.” 

Something suddenly clicks for Arthur. He says carefully, “Yes. They are nice. And I like them a lot. But you know that you’re still my mom.” 

“I will always be your mother,” his mother replies lightly. 

Arthur doesn’t let her be light, because this is important. Because Arthur suddenly recognizes what’s lurking underneath that sad, melancholy smile. “No,” Arthur insists. “I mean, yes, you will be, but that’s not what I mean. Eames has great parents, right? It’s undeniably true. And I still feel bad for him, because he didn’t have you.” 

And he knows he hit it exactly right because his mother is suddenly blinking back tears at him. “Arthur,” she says, and then doesn’t say anything else. 

He catches her up in a tight hug. “There is no two-parent team I would ever want, because then I wouldn’t have gotten to have you. And you’re the best. I was so serious as a child not because I wasn’t happy then but because I was so happy that I didn’t know how I was ever going to repay you for everything you were doing to make me that way.” 

His mother hugs him back, very tightly, and she says, “Arthur, you have repaid me a thousand times over for anything you could possibly think you owe me.” 

“I’ve never felt sad about what we had, Mom,” Arthur says truthfully. “I’ve always felt sad that everyone else didn’t get to have it.” And that’s true: Even in the day when he’s wished his father had stuck around, it was never really because he missed his father so much as it was that he felt bad for his dad missing out on everything he was missing out on. Not in a conceited way that Arthur thought he would have been the world’s best son, but just that it was a pretty good life and so silly to throw something like that away. Arthur was a serious and lonely child, it’s true, but that was never his mother’s fault. In fact, his bright spot was always his mother and he’s sorry he hasn’t made that clearer through the years. 

“I just used to worry so much,” his mother confesses against him. “That’s why I applied to _Love It or List It_ for you. I was just worried about you, and I wanted you to be happy. The only thing any mother wants is a happy child—”

“I was always happy, Mom. There were lots of things that weren’t perfect, but I wish I could have stopped you from worrying so much. Because you did such a great job making me happy. I’m sorry I didn’t always show it as much as I could have. I can’t even imagine how unhappy I would have been without you. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.” 

There is a long moment of silence. Arthur waits through it. He knows he can’t really stop his mother from worrying, because Arthur can never even stop _himself_ from worrying. They are worriers by nature, although he suspects he is more so than his mother. But he hopes he’s gotten across to her that he would rather have her for a mother than any picture-perfect family in the world. He’s happier now than he’s ever been in his life, but that doesn’t really mean he was _un_ happy before, just that his happiness was somewhat less complete. 

Finally his mother just says, her voice very steady and even, “You’re a really great son. You always have been. I’m very lucky.” 

Arthur thinks of Eames and Julia teasing him about being a leprechaun. He knows that Eames would bring that up now, would say something smooth and flippant. Eames would say something like _I know_. Arthur says, “You’re a really great mom, too. And you always have been. I’m very lucky.”


	164. Chapter 164

It is chaos at their house in the morning. Mostly because Arthur isn’t used to the whirl of so many people in his kitchen and he loves having the parents there, he really does, but he’s starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. The regular, home-cooked meals are fantastic, but Arthur kind of wants to curl up in an antisocial ball at the breakfast bar and hide behind his newspaper and not talk to anyone. At least until he’s through his cup of coffee. Eames lets him do this when he gets in this mood, before patiently coaxing him out of it, but Arthur doesn’t have the luxury of A Mood when everyone is all around and asking him a million really well-intentioned questions about whether he would like some juice and what sort of eggs he’d like. These are really silly, sweet, basic questions and Arthur is looking at the snarl of their daily schedule and wishes he could say, _Please stop, I’m thinking here_.

Eames notices, because Eames always does. He says, “Arthur’s trying to plan, just fry him up a couple of eggs and I’ll handle the rest of this.” 

Arthur sighs in relief and then wonders if he’s come across as rude and brooding, in his corner by the door with the whiteboard. 

Luckily Eames seems to have stolen all the attention. Arthur hears Maggie fussing over Eames’s shirt, something about how the pattern is indecent, isn’t it, and Albert contributing to the conversation, and Arthur wonders vaguely if Eameses ever stop talking for even two seconds. 

“Can I help?” his mother asks him. “I don’t want to bother you, but what can I do to help?” 

“Eames and I will be gone most of the day,” Arthur says. “The judgings last forever. And I had ideas for what you guys could do while we were gone but I hadn’t finalized any of them and I meant to do that last night and forgot and now I have nothing to offer you.” 

“That’s fine,” his mother says. “We’re capable of finding our own way around.”

“I know,” says Arthur. “But Eames and I are the hosts. I didn’t want you to have to worry.” 

“I am well aware that’s your motto and it isn’t necessary right now. Do I have to bring Eames over here to talk you out of this?” 

Arthur knows Eames would call it the precipice of a panic spiral and would distract him with banter and probably that’s what they’re going to spend the ride to the set talking about. Arthur knows Eames is very aware that he’s fretting in his corner right now. So Arthur sighs and says, “Fine. I will leave it to you. But you need to make sure you call us if you have any questions or issues or anything.” 

“We’ll be fine,” Arthur’s mother assures him. 

“Arthur, come and have your breakfast!” Maggie calls to him. 

Arthur walks over to the breakfast bar and forces himself to show proper appreciation for his breakfast. Eames, who is wolfing down his own breakfast, leans over and kisses his temple and murmurs, “Eat your protein, darling.” 

“Is that meant to be a double entendre?” asks Arthur, since their parents are now prattling away with each other and not paying attention. 

“Everything I say is meant to be a double entendre,” says Eames, and somehow manages to give him a very intent wink that says _I know you’re dragging, I’m going to cheer you up_. “If you were on a desert island and there was only one type of wildlife on the island, what would you want it to be?” 

Arthur relaxes into the foolishness of the question, considers. “Probably a chicken. Eggs and meat.” 

“Fuck, you’re very practical,” says Eames. “I was going to go with chinchilla.” 

“Chinchilla?” 

“They’re cool, right?” 

“Cool?” echoes Arthur. “But what good would that do you on a desert island?” 

“Maybe a dog would be better,” muses Eames. 

“What are you two talking about?” asks Maggie, as she sits down at the breakfast bar with her own plate of food. 

“Eames is being absolutely ridiculous and pointless,” says Arthur. 

“Which is why you love me,” Eames smiles at him. 

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. Because it _is_. And he already feels better. He says, “What would happen once you had to eat the dog? At least go with a cow, maybe.” 

“Darling, I don’t know how to butcher a cow, my English countryside childhood wasn’t that bloody, in the literal sense.” 

“Should we have taught you how to butcher a cow?” asks Albert. 

“Apparently it would have come in handy on a desert island,” says Eames, sipping his tea. 

“A desert island populated by only one animal,” Arthur explains. 

“Pigs, I think,” says Albert. “Lots of bacon.”

“Chickens,” says Arthur’s mother. “Eggs and meat.” 

Eames laughs and says, “Exactly what Arthur chose.” 

“What did you choose, Eamesie?” asks Maggie. 

“Chinchilla,” Eames announces proudly, like it was a really good choice. 

Maggie sighs and shakes her head and says, “I just don’t know what to do with you.” 

“Arthur has some good ideas,” says Eames, smirking into his teacup. 

The doorbell rings. 

“Thank God,” says Arthur. “Our car is here.” 

“Have a good day at work, boys!” calls Maggie after them. 

“Don’t worry about us!” calls Arthur’s mother. 

“Some kind of insect might also be good!” calls Albert. “I hear they have a lot of protein.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur, laughing as he tumbles his way into the car. 

“That’s better,” Eames says, and kisses Arthur’s dimples one by one. “Much better. Good morning,” he says to the driver brightly. 

The driver gives them a little wave as they jerk into motion. 

Arthur leans into Eames and breathes him in and closes his eyes and feels more centered. He can get centered on his own, but he likes it better when Eames is involved. “Thank you for bantering with me,” he mumbles against him, heartfelt. 

Eames ducks his head and speaks into his ear. “Anytime, kitten.”


	165. Chapter 165

“Julia, Julia, lovely Julia!” says Eames grandly as he walks into the makeup room. 

“You’re in a good mood,” Julia remarks. She’s finishing up with Alec, who gives them a neutral, inscrutable look as they walk in. 

“Last day of pre-taped filming for this show,” replies Eames. “ _Ever_. I feel I should have smuggled champagne in here. Something alcoholic, at the very least.” 

“You don’t carry a flask in your pocket at all times, Eames?” asks Julia. “I’m disappointed.” 

“Insert a nope-I’m-just-happy-to-see-you double entendre joke,” says Eames. 

Arthur would point out that Eames is now so lazy about his double entendres that he doesn’t even bother to fully make them but he doesn’t really want to banter in front of Alec. Arthur will willingly banter with Eames in front of millions of television viewers but he is loath to give Alec a personal show like that. 

Alec says, “Well, I, for one, am very sad.” 

“Are you?” asks Eames, very sincerely. “How tragic. Where do you feel the sadness?” 

“ _Here_ ,” Alec says, completely earnestly, as he rests his hand over his chest. “Deep, deep in my heart. This has just been…such an _amazing_ experience. I will cherish it forever.” 

“Us, too,” says Eames, sounding deeply amused. “Forever.” 

Julia steps aside, because Alec is apparently done. Alec stands and faces them and says solemnly, “That means a lot to me. _You two_ …” Pause for dramatic emphasis. “Have meant a lot to me.”

“Have we?” Arthur can’t help but say incredulously. 

Alec winces. “Oh, Arthur. It pains me that you don’t know that. You are an important and memorable person. Never sell yourself short.” Alec looks very concerned about that. 

“I’m working on that, Alec, thanks,” deadpans Arthur. 

“If you ever need to talk, I hope you will always think of us as friends.” Alec turns to Eames. “I know we parted on difficult terms—”

“No, we didn’t,” says Eames. 

“—but I hope now that you feel we have healed our wounds.” 

“I do feel that way,” says Eames. “I feel it _here_.” He presses his hand to his chest. 

Alec nods, with a small smile that reminds Arthur of a politician working really hard to elicit sympathy over how _seriously_ he is taking everything. Then he leaves. 

“He doesn’t even know my fucking name,” remarks Julia, “but he’s going to miss you guys with all of his _heart_.” 

“I actually am concerned that he has issues,” Arthur says, as Eames gets settled in Julia’s chair. 

Eames snorts. “Oh, he definitely has issues.” 

“No, I mean, like, serious issues.” 

“Yes. His issue is a delusional narcissist. He readily told me that once. He says it’s what’s helped him to be so successful. Because he defines success by his show and not be interpersonal relationships. Speaking of, how’s Paul? I haven’t spoken to him in days because we are on a Real Work Sabbatical, so I miss him dreadfully.” 

“Should I be jealous?” asks Julia lightly. 

“Nah, Arthur would never let me get serious with Paul.” 

“It’s true,” says Arthur, sitting on Julia’s couch. “I am a harsh and cruel proponent of our monogamous relationship.” 

“And he’s really good in bed,” says Eames, “so I listen to him.” 

“Well, Paul doesn’t miss you at all,” says Julia. “He was just saying how lovely it is to have a break from your, let me see if I can remember the exact words, ‘crazy-ass lunacy,’ I think that was it.” 

“Genius is always misunderstood,” sighs Eames. 

“Which is basically Alec’s motto, I think,” remarks Arthur. “So things with Paul are still going well?”

“Yes. Although you two had better not be planning a wedding, because it is way too early for anything like that.” She points a threatening finger at each of them in turn. 

Arthur says, “Julia, would I ever do anything like that?” 

Eames says, “Oh, my God, you’re already thinking about marrying him?” 

“I don’t think you understood the point of what I just said,” sighs Julia. “So how are your parents? They were the cutest things. Not tagging along with you today?” 

“No, they were embarrassing enough last time,” says Eames. “Plus the confidentiality obligations on this show right now are a bitch.” 

“Tell me about it,” says Julia. “They’ve got us under lock and key. I’m surprised they’re even letting us leave between now and the live taping.” 

“What’s the point of that?” Arthur asks. “So what if the last challenge leaks? People would still tune in.” 

“I don’t think Mal wants to take that chance. I think the MTV job has a lot to do with wielding secrecy to build buzz and Mal’s already got the job but she wants to prove she can do it.” 

“You know, I wonder what Cobb thinks about Mal’s new MTV job,” remarks Eames. “We haven’t even thought about Cobb.” 

“I do not find it shocking that we haven’t been thinking about Cobb,” says Arthur. 

“Well, I heard he’s moping about it,” says Julia. 

“You always have all the best gossip,” Eames praises her. 

“It’s Paul. He’s hooked up, let me tell you.” 

“Really?” Eames pouts a little. “He never gossips with me.” 

“Probably because you can’t keep a secret,” Julia says. 

“Oh, and you’re the KGB, I suppose,” Eames retorts. 

“The KGB?” says Julia, wrinkling her nose. 

“They were probably good at keeping secrets,” Eames shrugs. 

“Actually, the entire Cold War was a lesson in how bad everyone in the universe is at keeping secrets,” says Arthur. “And you two are both terrible at it.” 

“How many people have I told about your secret leprechaun heritage?” asks Julia. 

“None,” says Arthur. “Because that would make you sound crazy.” 

“I am fucking tweeting about that as soon as I get done with your makeup,” says Julia. 

“And I will retweet the hell out of it,” promises Eames. 

“You are fucking lunatics,” sighs Arthur.


	166. Chapter 166

Theoretically, nothing about the judging should take very long. They’ve only got four contestants to get through, and they’re good strong contestants, and Arthur feels like he’d probably be happy with any final three they ended up with. 

Provided that final three had Ariadne. Because he’s inescapably biased towards Ariadne. And in earlier days he’d feel guilty about that, but, fuck it, he loves Ariadne’s designs. 

They see her library first, and the best part about it is that it’s almost all windows. The walls are windows, and even the ceiling is largely windows. The floor is an ebony hardwood that complements the brightness. The bookshelves are sinuous winding curves through the middle of the room, with cozy reading nooks nestled into circular alcoves. 

“It’s reminiscent of the closet maze,” Ariadne explains. 

“And the skylights are reminiscent of the small flat challenge,” notes Eames. 

Ariadne smiles. “I got permission this time. I just thought that libraries in homes are always done to be so dark, and I don’t get that. When I want to read, I want to read by bright natural light.” 

“And what if you are a person who hates brightness?” inquires Alec with a little sniff of indignation on behalf of all such people. 

“Then you do this,” says Ariadne, and flips a switch that brings shades descending into place all around the windows. “If you had more time than I had, you could control them all individually, so you could really customize the amount of light in the room. You could make it as dark as you wanted, but you’d also have the option to make it really bright, too, which a lot of dark rooms lack.” 

Arthur, of course, loves the design but he doesn’t think he even needs to say that out loud. He wanders through the curves of Ariadne’s bookshelves and thinks of Eames’s playful curving hallways in their home. 

On the other side of one of the bookshelves, he hears Alec say, “It’s just so distressing to think that this is the final time we will be facing a judging like this together, before the finale. It has been so lovely getting to know you, Ariadne. I feel as if I truly grasp who you are… _here_.” 

Arthur pokes his head out from between the shelves. Ariadne is staring at Alec. Eames is doing the worst job hiding his laughter behind her. 

Arthur decides to save Ariadne the effort of responding. “Great job, Ari,” he says. “Two thumbs up.” 

“Such a trite way to finish Ariadne’s judging on this show,” says Alec. “It would be more appropriate to say that your library closes around us. Like a womb.” 

“If you’re playing _Next Big Thing_ bingo at home,” Eames says into the nearest camera, “I bet you didn’t think you’d get to check off ‘Alec mentions wombs’ twice.” 

They move on to the next room, which is Sunny’s. Her room isn’t quite as bright as Ariadne’s, but the walls are wallpapered in a white satiny paper that shimmers attractively. The floor is a bleached wood over which Sunny has scattered fluffy throw rugs with hints of shimmer in them, too. And hanging throughout the room, descending in bright copper chains from the ceiling, are cheerful white buckets, dangling at various heights. Next to each bucket is a different style chair. 

“The books are kept in the buckets,” Sunny explains. 

Arthur peeks into the nearest bucket to find that there are indeed some books in there. It’s not the most practical design in the world but it’s a sweet interpretation, whimsical and fun. 

Alec says, “Sunny. We have come so far. Together. I feel… _responsible_ …for you.” He delivers this pronouncement very solemnly, standing before her in what Arthur recognizes is a pose. Arthur has begun to realize that Alec always stands in poses, like he always expects everyone around him to have a camera. 

Sunny says, “I kind of feel responsible for myself.” 

Arthur smiles. 

Eames says, “Hear, hear. Sunny, it’s a nice twist on a library. Not sure it’s terribly practical, but sometimes practicality in design can be overrated.” 

“Probably Arthur doesn’t agree with that,” says Sunny, with a shy smile in Arthur’s direction. 

“I like practicality,” Arthur admits, “but I see the charm of this place.” 

Sunny says, “Honestly, it’s not like a lot of people’s libraries are very practical these days. A lot of the time they’re just showrooms, you know? They’re not actually used.” 

“Libraries can be used for a great many things,” intones Alec gravely. “They do not just have to be used for reading books.” He poses again. 

Arthur just sighs and rolls his eyes, because really. 

Eames says, “It’s true. I love a good snogging session in a library. I mean, all that love poetry all around? Books are sexy, right?” Eames winks at Sunny. 

Sunny blushes and giggles because Eames’s winks can be near-fatal when you aren’t used to them. 

Alec frowns and heads off to the next room. 

Eames says to Arthur, as they walk off together, “Alec’s clearly decided this is his last chance to try to be positively giffed for a good, deep quote.” 

Arthur says to Eames, “You can’t just go around winking at people, you know. Not everyone is as immune to your charms as I am.” 

Eames laughs. “You are bloody _addicted_ to my charms, you lying scoundrel.”

“Scoundrel?” echoes Arthur. “Is that what you’re calling me now?” 

“That’s what I’m calling you—” Eames stops talking, because they have entered Misty Rainbow’s room, and apparently they are in the fucking Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 

The air is thick and humid and everywhere Arthur looks there are dense green plants, and somewhere there is water rushing so loudly that Misty Rainbow shouts as she comes over. “Welcome to my library!” 

Arthur looks all around them and shouts back, “But where are the books?” 

“Oh, Arthur,” says Misty Rainbow.


	167. Chapter 167

Misty Rainbow explains that books are not necessary in libraries. 

“Libraries are for learning,” she says, still fighting over the rushing water sound. Which turns out to be a water feature she’s installed that is basically an indoor waterfall. That is too energetic and is spilling water all over the floor. Luckily the floor is composed mostly of springy moss, so it’s not such a huge deal. “Here, you learn from the nature all around you.” 

“And, of course,” shouts Eames, almost directly in Arthur’s ear, “I suppose you could always bring a book in here.” 

“Except it would get soaking wet!” Arthur shouts back. 

Misty Rainbow is shaking her head at them sadly. “You are both too concerned with material things. Like books. Look at the nature all around you. Take a deep breath. And just listen.” Misty Rainbow closes her eyes. 

Arthur, after an awkward second, decides to follow her lead. 

After a moment Eames says, “Is there a fucking _bird_ in here?” and Arthur opens his eyes. 

It does kind of sound like there’s birdsong off in the distance, but that might be some kind of soundtrack Misty Rainbow is piping in. 

Misty Rainbow says, “Nature comes in, and nature comes out, and it is not for us to try to control it.” 

“I suppose that’s true,” Eames allows. 

“Not really,” counters Arthur. “I try really hard not to let birds in our house.”

“It’s true,” Eames tells Misty Rainbow, “he does.” 

Misty Rainbow opens her eyes and just tuts at him. “Oh, Arthur.” 

He’s grown very used to her disappointment, so he just says, “Also worms and ants and spiders, I don’t like to have them in my house, either.” 

Alec says, “I don’t know if you really got the point of this challenge.” 

Misty Rainbow says, “I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten the point of anything. Ever.” 

Eames lifts his eyebrows and glances between the two of them and generally looks like he wants some popcorn. 

Alec says, “Misty Rainbow. I hope you know that I feel terrible over what happened between us. I feel it…” 

Something in Misty Rainbow’s expression must finally get through Alec’s armor of self-absorption, because he doesn’t finish what he was going to say. 

“I think it’s safe to say he feels it lots of places,” Eames says helpfully. 

Misty Rainbow says sarcastically, “Thanks, Alec. I’m glad to know that you feel terrible over what I did to you in bed.” 

Eames makes a little squeak of a noise, looking astonished by how amazing this conversation is. 

Arthur says loudly, “ _Anyway_ , I generally like my libraries with books but this is a really nice indoor forest and Eames is probably going to call you up for advice.” 

Eames makes some sort of vague gesture in agreement. 

Alec stalks out of the room. 

Eames practically bounces as they follow. “That was _amazing_.” 

“No, we are not having a waterfall in our house,” Arthur says. “The river hallways will have to be enough precarious water features for you.” 

“Who gives a fuck about the waterfall? I’m talking about the _conversation_. That was better than _EastEnders_!” 

“Misty Rainbow’s right, you’d better never say you feel terrible about our sex life.” 

“Darling, I feel the opposite of terrible about our sex life,” says Eames. 

“Good,” says Arthur. 

There’s a moment of silence, then Eames says, “You might have a point about the waterfall being incredible. What if I just—”

“No,” says Arthur, and walks into Gon’s room. 

“I’ll wear you down,” Eames murmurs under his breath. 

Arthur shoots him a glare, mostly because he knows Eames is fucking right, damn him. 

Arthur had thought that Gon might give them the most traditional library, and in a way he does, but it isn’t the dark cozy space Arthur had envisioned him designing. Instead, it’s very playful, and Arthur feels like Gon has come such a long way in this competition. If the show was actually about most improved designer, Arthur feels like Gon and Sunny would be battling it out right now. 

Gon’s bookshelves are designed like puzzle pieces, and Gon demonstrates how easily they can be moved around and reconfigured. Even the floor functions like that, a series of interlocking pieces that can be shifted, like one huge mosaic. Arthur’s never really seen anything like it and he thinks it’s an incredibly interesting idea. 

“It’d be kind of a mess, though, right?” he says. “I mean, the more stuff you had on the floor, the harder it would be to move it.” 

“Yeah,” Gon agrees, “you’d have to keep your floors pretty neat and clean.” 

“Hmm,” muses Arthur. “Maybe we should get something like this for your office, Eames.” 

“Ha ha, hilarious,” says Eames, and gives a shifting of a bookcase a try. “Not bad. Not as difficult as I thought.” 

“With a little more time, a little more refinement, I think it could really work,” says Gon. 

“I like it,” Eames says. “I like it a lot. It’s excellent for people who can’t make up their minds and like to redecorate a lot.” 

“Exactly,” says Gon. “I call it a Choose Your Own Library. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.” 

“What’s a Choose Your Own Adventure book?” asks Alec. 

“It does not surprise me that you don’t know what those are,” remarks Eames. 

“Do they have them in England?” asks Arthur. 

“Why do you ask that?” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows. “Because you grew up in England,” he reminds Eames. 

“Oh, are you supposed to read those books as a child?” says Eames, and then winks at Arthur. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

Alec says, “Gon. You are the last person we will judge in this manner. So forgive me if I get…emotional.” 

Arthur blinks at him. Is he _crying_?

“Are you _crying_?” asks Eames. 

“Maybe a little,” Alec says, sniffling. “I just hate to leave everyone.” And suddenly he falls on Gon in a hug. 

Gon looks alarmed at Arthur and Eames over Alec’s shoulder. He pats at Alec a little bit and says awkwardly, “Um. There, there. There, there.”

Eames accidentally knocks an entire shelf’s worth of books onto the floor in his attempt to hide his hysterics.


	168. Chapter 168

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a meeting tonight so the update schedule's going to be a bit off!

Arthur was worried that the voting for the elimination this episode was going to be a nightmare, but he feels like Misty Rainbow made it easy. It’s who to pick for the challenge win that perplexes him, and he actually ends up going with Sunny because he thinks that she did a really good job completely reinventing what a library is in a creative way that really worked. 

When they add up the ranks, Sunny’s the victor, but Misty Rainbow and Ariadne are tied for elimination. 

Arthur stares at the result in disbelief. 

Alec says, “Well, we can’t eliminate Misty Rainbow, so I guess it’s Ariadne who’s out.” 

Now Arthur stares at Alec in disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘we can’t eliminate Misty Rainbow’?” 

Alec looks at him as if he’s being unusually idiotic, more idiotic than normal. 

Arthur thinks that violence is never the answer but sometimes it would be pretty fucking satisfying. 

Alec says, “Well, it would look bad, wouldn’t it? Eliminating Misty Rainbow?”

“Why would it look bad?” asks Eames, his voice hard. 

Alec looks between the two of them. “Well. _You_ know.” He makes some kind of motion with his hand. 

“Because you fucked her?” Arthur demands. “Because you are a complete fucking narcissist who had to go and fuck a contestant and now you want us to throw the results so that you’re not the victim of some kind of _very deserved_ backlash?” 

“Artie.” Alec pouts at him, and Arthur wonders if Alec really is that fucking stupid that he thinks pouts and that _horrible_ nickname are going to win him any favors. “Think about this for a second. You know how it is, workplace romances, you get caught up in the heat of the moment and you do things you might regret. _You_ know.” 

Arthur is silent for an incredulous moment. Then he turns to Eames. “Is he talking about us? Is he fucking talking about us in the context of ‘workplace romances’ ‘caught up in the heat of the moment’ that we ‘regret’?”

Eames says, “Alec, the challenge was to create a library. Misty Rainbow didn’t create a library. She created a very lovely space, but it wasn’t a library.” Eames says all of this so calmly, like Alec is someone to be reasoned with instead of a _total fucking lunatic_. 

Alec says, “But you heard Misty Rainbow: A library isn’t only a space with books. You can also learn from—”

“Yes!” Arthur shouts. “A library _is_ a space with books! That is the _literal fucking definition_ of a library!” 

“Is it, though?” asks Alec dubiously, as if Arthur has just told him that unicorns are common pets. 

“We are not voting off Ariadne,” snaps Arthur. “She made a lovely library. An _actual library_. With _books_. I’m not voting her off because you make the worst fucking decisions about who to sleep with. No. Scratch that. Second worst. Because Eames makes the worst.” 

After a moment, Eames says in a small voice, “Right now I’m sleeping with you, darling—”

“Shut up,” Arthur says to him. 

“Right,” Eames agrees, and shuts up. 

“I don’t see why you should get your favorite to stay while my favorite has to leave,” says Alec. 

“She isn’t your favorite!” protests Arthur. “You were horrible to her!” 

“Which is exactly why I need to make it up to her by making sure she makes it to the final.” 

“I want to vote again,” says Arthur suddenly. 

“What?” says Alec. “Why?” 

“Because I didn’t vote for Ariadne to win the challenge. If I’d voted for Ariadne to win the challenge, then this entire debate gets avoided. We need to re-vote.” 

“And then the girl _you’re_ fucking gets to—” starts Alec. 

“I’m not fucking her,” says Arthur, “oh, my God, do you understand that I am in an _actual serious relationship_ with Eames?” 

Alec looks like he doesn’t know why that’s relevant. 

“Why would be I fucking Ariadne?” Arthur demands shortly, spelling it out for Alec. “If I’m dating Eames?”

“Well,” says Alec. “You know. Because Eames is a little…” Alec makes a downward sloping motion with his hand. “In the sack.” 

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says Arthur, and looks at Eames, who just has his eyebrows lifted and is staring at Alec. 

“It’s true,” says Alec, shrugging. 

“It’s not true,” says Arthur. “Eames is like this…” Arthur makes an upward sloping motion with his hand. “In the sack. Oh, my God, why am I discussing my sex life with you? Fuck this. New vote.” 

“There can’t be a new vote,” protests Alec. “That’s not allowed.” 

“Where is the rule that says we can only take one vote?” asks Arthur. “Because the only rule I’m aware of right now is that we can’t tell the network we’re eliminating two people in the middle of their precious live finale.” 

“Let’s flip a coin,” says Alec desperately. 

“No,” responds Arthur flatly. He is already re-ranking his choices. Next to him Eames is doing the same. “Fucking vote,” Arthur tells Alec, “or I’m going to count you as abstaining.” 

Alec says, “I’m not re-voting. My vote remains the same.” 

“Fine,” snaps Arthur, and does a recount with his and Eames’s new votes. 

The new vote puts Ariadne as the winner of the challenge, with Misty Rainbow as the lone contestant voted off. Arthur thinks that means that Eames changes his vote, too, to throw more weight behind Ariadne and he’s torn between feeling guilty about that and wanting to throw himself on top of Eames immediately. 

Alec says, “That is not fair. You two voted as a bloc against me.” 

“You’re right,” Arthur agrees. “We’ll give the victory to the second place contestant, Sunny.” 

“No,” Alec says. “I mean, whatever, I don’t care who you give that to, but we’re not voting off Misty Rainbow.” 

“Watch us,” says Arthur darkly. 

“Alec,” says Eames, in that light tone of voice that contradictorily says he means business, “you want to back down here. Things will not go well for you.” 

“You’re the ones manipulating the vote—”

“If you had said even once that you preferred Misty Rainbow’s design,” says Eames mildly, “I would have given your view on this credence. But you don’t actually prefer Misty Rainbow’s design. You’re voting with your career in mind here. Well, you should have had your career in mind before you decided to fuck a contestant. Ariadne doesn’t get screwed over for the sake of your career. We’re done here.” 

“You can’t just—”

Arthur stalks over to the door and throws it open and shouts, “Mal! We have the results!”


	169. Chapter 169

Alec tries to whine at Mal. “They’re voting in a bloc against me! They’re throwing the vote!” 

“What’s this?” Mal asks. She sounds bored and not at all interested in the debate. 

Arthur lets Eames tell the story because he thinks Eames is calmer about it and Arthur already recognizes that maybe he’s just as biased as Alec and maybe he should be just staying out of this. 

Eames says, “Alec is insisting that we not cut Misty Rainbow. Because of their history together.” 

“Mal, tell them how bad it would be for the show if Misty Rainbow gets cut tonight.” 

Mal stares at him. “How bad it would be for the show? It might be bad for _you_. I think the show would survive just fine. It’s only got one more episode to film, anyway, and no one will know we’ve cut Misty Rainbow until the live finale. We didn’t keep you on this show after everything you did so that you could use your rule-breaking to color all the results. Let’s do a poll.” She looks at Arthur. “Who’s your vote to win?” 

“It was Sunny,” Arthur says honestly. 

“Who was your vote to eliminate?” 

“Misty Rainbow,” says Arthur. 

“You can’t count Arthur,” inserts Alec. “He’s biased.” 

“I’m not letting Arthur decide,” Mal tells Alec, and turns to Eames and asks him the same questions. He votes for Gon to win and Misty Rainbow to be eliminated. 

Mal also asks Alec. Alec votes for Misty Rainbow to win and Ariadne to be eliminated. 

“Well,” Mal says, “it’s a two-to-one vote for Misty Rainbow to be eliminated. And, if we eliminate Arthur and Alec, it’s still Misty Rainbow being eliminated by the one vote we have left.”

“You can’t do that,” Alec protests. “That’s not fair.” 

“It’s voting,” Mal says. “There was no set voting process. And Eames, at least, hasn’t had any accusations of bias.” 

“Eames _is_ biased,” Alec spits. “He’s biased toward stupid _Arthur_ and their lovey-dovey disgustingness, and his continued compliance with the delusion everyone at this network has fallen for that Arthur is at all qualified to vote about _design_ \--”

Arthur thinks that he has more qualifications about design in his fucking pinkie toe than Alec has in his whole body. Which is weird because at first he worried a ton about that but now he _knows_ , without a doubt, that he’s a good judge of design and he should be listened to and he’s not going to let Alec try to bully him out of that. 

Eames interrupts quietly, “Alec, stop, right now.”

And Alec does, because Alec is at least smart enough to know that you listen to Eames when he talks in that tone of voice. 

“This is a design show,” Eames continues, still talking very quietly and evenly. “Here are my design reasons for my vote. Misty Rainbow didn’t make a library. The challenge was to make a library. The dictionary definition of library is a room involving with books. Or at least a room involving some collection or organization of _something_. Misty Rainbow didn’t even attempt to justify her room other than saying it was about learning from nature, but that could be a classroom, not a library. She didn’t make a library, and that’s what she was supposed to do, so she failed. So I voted to eliminate her. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing on this show. You seem unclear, so I thought I’d illuminate you.”

Alec opens his mouth to speak. 

Eames says, “And for another thing: You broke this show’s rule once, and the reason this show had that rule was to try to keep the voting fair and unbiased. We let you stay, but we cannot let you render the voting unfair and biased. The rule was in place to protect that, and since you violated the rule, we now need to find other ways to protect that. We could have done it by kicking you off the show. We didn’t. So now we’re doing it this way: If you can’t be fair and unbiased, you don’t get a vote.”

There is a long moment of silence. 

Alec finally says petulantly, “What about Arthur?” 

Arthur is about to volunteer to give up his vote, too, but Eames speaks first. 

“It’s not about Arthur,” says Eames evenly. “But I will say that if you didn’t expect Arthur as a judge, you didn’t have to agree to be on this show. Because, unlike Arthur and me, you actually knew who you’d be judging with when you signed on.” 

Alec looks at Eames for a second, and then turns back to Mal, and the only thing he can seem to muster is, “This isn’t fair.” 

“You know what’s not fair?” demands Mal. “You can’t keep your dick in your pants and you expect the rest of us to just let you get away with treating everyone around you less-than-human. That’s not fair behavior from a grown man. And now you come running to me like I’m your mom and someone cut in front of you in the line for the slide? I don’t care. Misty Rainbow didn’t make a library. Even if the vote didn’t come out that way, it’s within my power to just flat-out disqualify her. So that’s done. Eames voted for Gon to win, so he’s the winner.” 

“A vote for winner isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Eames says. “Having eliminated Misty Rainbow, Alec shouldn’t have any bias left.” 

“Fine.” Mal shrugs. “So Eames voted for Gon and Arthur voted for Sunny. Who do you want, Alec?” 

Alec glares at Arthur, and Arthur knows that this is terrible choice for him. If he votes for Sunny, he’s letting Arthur win. But if he votes for Gon, he’s voting for an Arthur mentee who Arthur’s been guiding. And, obviously, he can’t possibly vote for Ariadne. 

Arthur offers, “The original vote we took had Sunny winning.” 

“Then should we keep it that way?” Mal asks Alec. 

Alec makes a sound of frustration. “I think Misty Rainbow should win—”

Mal holds up a finger. “Not an option. Gon or Sunny.” 

“Sunny, I guess,” says Alec, sulkily. 

“Good. Let’s get this godforsaken thing filmed.” Mal stalks off. 

Alec says to Arthur, “At least your pet Ariadne didn’t win.” 

Alec might as well stick his tongue out, thinks Arthur. Alec is really fucking unbelievable. 

And Arthur thinks he’s let Alec goad him into saying enough hot-headed, stupid things for the day. So Arthur just walks over to get into position for filming, and Eames follows him. Arthur knows that he needs to apologize to Eames, because he just made everything a disaster and said vicious things and only Eames kept everything from falling to pieces even though he had virtually no incentive to given how crazily Arthur was acting. But Arthur feels like any attempt he might make to apologize now would be jumbled and incoherent because he’s still too furious to see straight. 

Eames snaps at where Alec is lingering back where they were, glaring daggers at them, “Alec, you’re the one who takes the longest because of your fucking fedora shadow, so get over here.” 

Alec stomps over, and there’s a lot of fussing over him by Yusuf. 

Then the contestants file in. The atmosphere is tense. Arthur thinks it would have been even if there hadn’t been the whole showdown with Alec. It’s just that everyone is so close to the prize now that they must be able to taste it. But Arthur has a clear conscience about eliminating Misty Rainbow. She had to know she was signing her own death warrant on the show by not doing the library. That stunt worked when the Internet had been voting, but Misty Rainbow’s no idiot and she knew he and Eames wouldn’t go for that. Misty Rainbow was going down true to her vision. Arthur respects that but he still thinks that eliminating her is the right choice. 

Alec seems to think that he’s going to announce the challenge winner or the eliminated contestant and Arthur thinks, _No fucking way_. 

Eames has the same thought. Alec opens his mouth and starts in apparently on one of his unnecessarily long-winded speeches—“After much deliberation”—and it’s his undoing. Eames jumps in and says, “This challenge’s winner is Sunny.” 

Sunny looks incredibly stunned. “Really?” she says, and then bursts into tears. 

Alec draws breath and says, “But more importantly—”

“Misty Rainbow, you’ve been eliminated,” says Eames quickly. 

Everyone looks stunned at the speed with which all of that took place. 

Mal says, “Uh, guys, we were supposed to build up the suspense a little bit there.” 

“Edit in some long pauses,” says Eames, waving his hand around. “Surely you have tons of footage of Alec looking extremely sincere. Just use some of it up.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” demands Alec. 

“It is very face-value, Alec,” says Eames. “Sunny, congratulations on your win, it was well-deserved, we loved your design.” 

“Arthur and Eames loved your design,” says Alec loudly. 

After a moment, Eames says, “Alec, rethink this. It’s not a good idea. Misty Rainbow, we’re sorry this is the end of the road, and we’ve really enjoyed the designs that you’ve given us, but this one just didn’t—” 

“I just want Misty Rainbow to know,” Alec continues speaking loudly, clearly to make sure the cameras catch it and Misty Rainbow hears, “that I voted for her design. That I was loyal to the end.” Alec doesn’t say his catchphrase but he does lay his hand over his heart anyway. 

Misty Rainbow says mildly, “Go to hell,” and then looks at Arthur and Eames and smiles and says, “Thanks, guys. I’ve learned a lot and I had a blast and you’ve been great.” Then she walks out with her head held high. 

There’s a moment of silence. Arthur doesn’t look at Alec because he doesn’t want to know what Alec’s face looks like. 

Eames says, “Sunny, as I was saying, we loved your design.”


	170. Chapter 170

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, you guys. I did not quite expect the furor that last night's chapters caused! Because of my meeting I didn't have time to respond to any comments but it was FASCINATING to read them. I think lunylovegoodlover summed it up really nicely in a late comment when she said that basically we'd all been so lulled by fluff that this caused a huge explosion in reaction, much like Arthur having been so lulled in life without Alec that he flew off the handle, too. That was just such a nice little parallel! And I really enjoyed watching everyone try to work through Arthur's mental space and Eames's mental space (and Alec's, but Alec is just unfathomable). 
> 
> Anyway, I hope this next chapter answers questions (or confirms?) what you were thinking about Arthur. I gave it a lot of thought to try to work him through where he is right now, and where Eames is. 
> 
> jbluphin's votes, btw, were exactly correct. That's how I had each of the judges vote each round, to get you to the result that you had.

It takes a little while to regroup after the announcements. Normally they’d go home at this point, of course, but the accelerated filming schedule of the finale means that they have to announce the next challenge. The designers don’t get any time off but have to dive right into the next task. Arthur’s relieved he’s not them. Arthur wants to go home and sleep for a thousand years right now. 

Eames gives the three remaining contestants a heartfelt speech about being the last three standing. It’s very sweet, all about the journey everyone has been on together, and how they survived past a lot of really strong and creative people, and they have depths of imagination that are impressive, and Eames knows they will all go on to have fruitful and rewarding careers bringing happiness to people with their designs, making spaces for people to live out their dream lives. It’s a really sweet speech. 

Then Alec starts talking and embarks on some kind of flowery speech of his own only his speech is all about him and how much he has enjoyed his time on the show and how much he has hoped that he has spread his wisdom to everyone and did he ever tell them about the time that…and then he’s telling the incomprehensible bears and rum story again and Arthur supposes that he respects Alec’s instinct toward circularity. Or maybe Alec only has the one story that he trots out constantly. 

Whatever it is, Arthur isn’t sure how long Alec blathers on for because he tunes him out in favor of exhaustedly counting the polka dots on the shirt Sunny is wearing. Eventually Eames interrupts with, “What a touching story, Alec! Wasn’t it a touching story? We all feel it _here_.” Eames lays a hand over his chest. 

In the little knot of contestants, Sunny looks bewildered, Gon looks glazed-over, and Ariadne solemnly puts her hand over her chest as well. Then she winks at Arthur. 

Eames says, “Darling, do you have anything you wish to say?” 

Arthur’s initial impulse is to say _Christ, no, haven’t we had enough?_ but he reminds himself that this is really the last opportunity they’ll get to talk to the contestants before the live show, so he looks out at them and he says, “You’ve done a really great job and I’m dreading having to decide between you guys, because all of you are truly talented designers who deserve to win. So. Good luck.” 

They all three smile at him, which is nice. 

Eames says, “Alec, want to reveal their challenge?” 

Alec is back to creeping the envelope open one tiny tear at a time. Arthur suppresses his sigh just barely. Alec is talking again but literally all Arthur can hear is nonsensical noises because he can’t be bothered to care enough to shape the noises into words. Finally the envelope is open and Alec announces, “Design a desk. The desk will be transported to the scene of the live taping to be judged on-stage.” 

There’s a moment of silence. 

“No pressure at all,” Eames says to the tense contestants, with a little smile. 

The joke falls flat but Arthur respects that he tried to make it. 

Alec goes off to talk to Mal, probably to complain more about him and Eames, but from the look on Mal’s face he’s not going to get anywhere. 

Ariadne comes up to him and Eames and says, “I just wanted to quickly say that everything’s good, Arthur.” 

Seriously, thinks Arthur, is there anyone in the world worse at keeping a secret than Ariadne? “Great,” he says, and tries to telepathically remind Ariadne that this is all supposed to be a surprise for Eames. 

“Bye, guys!” Ariadne hurries off with a little wave. 

Eames says, “Everything’s good? What everything?” 

“Who knows?” Arthur shrugs. “She just likes to, you know, announce that every once in a while.”

“Indeed.” Eames arches an eyebrow. “Who can untangle the mysterious ways of the guardian pixie sprite?” 

“Let’s go home,” Arthur says, because he wants to get them off this topic of conversation. 

Eames gives him a smirk that lets Arthur know that he is not so easily distracted but he will play along, and they head to the car in silence. Arthur thinks that he’ll apologize in the car for snapping at Eames and maybe then they can put this whole fucking day behind them. 

So of course Alec comes running out after them, shouting for them. 

“Fucking hell,” mutters Arthur under his breath. “What ridiculous thing can he possibly say to us now?” 

“I’ll handle him,” Eames says, and then raises his voice to greet Alec heartily. “Hello, what can we do for you?” 

Alec stalks right up to Eames, angrily enough that Arthur instinctively puts a hand out to keep him off of Eames. Alec looks down at Arthur’s hand and then back up. 

Arthur says mildly, “Don’t.” 

Eames says, sounding genuinely confused, “What the hell?” 

Alec says furiously, “If you think I’m going to let the two of you just destroy my career—”

“We’ve been over this,” Eames snaps. “We’re _not_.” 

Alec glares, then rounds on his heel and stomps away. 

Eames looks at Arthur. 

Arthur sighs and gets into the car, because what is there to say to _that_? 

When Eames follows him in, Arthur turns to him and takes a breath to apologize and then stops. Because he’s struck by two things: Eames doesn’t seem angry, although that’s typical for Eames, and Arthur feels…calm. Much calmer than he has at any point today. 

Eames says, as the car starts moving, “You look like you’re holding your breath, darling.” 

“I’m not panicked,” Arthur blurts out. 

“Good,” Eames says, and he smiles but he looks tired. “That’s how I like you.” 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, and grabs Eames’s hand so he can kiss his knuckles because Eames deserves to be kissed in an unusual place. “I’m really sorry I lost my temper and snapped at you. That wasn’t called for. And I’m sorry.” 

Eames, after a second, shifts the hand Arthur is holding so he can press his thumb into one of Arthur’s dormant dimples. Then he says, “You know that I don’t mind any panic spiral you fall into. You know I don’t.” 

“But I shouldn’t lash out at you in the middle of one,” says Arthur. “And I’m working on that. I’m going to get better. I think I’ve been getting better at all of this. I mean, yeah, I still blew up at Alec today but I’m not panicking. I just want to make sure that you know that I’m sorry and I love you.” Arthur leans forward and dots a kiss onto Eames’s chin. 

“I know,” Eames says, and pets his hand through Arthur’s hair. “I do. And thank you for saying I was…” Eames makes an upward motion with his hand. “In bed.” 

And Arthur can’t help the fact that a laugh bubbles out of him. “Jesus, that whole conversation was so ridiculous. I’m sorry. I should have defended you better.” 

Eames shrugs, looking amused. “I’m fine with not getting into the details of our sex life with Alec.”

“And I didn’t mean to manipulate into changing your vote for Ariadne,” Arthur says, “I didn’t want to stoop to his level—”

“Darling, you were definitely not stooping to his level. He had no valid design reason for what he was doing. I switched my vote to Ariadne entirely of my own volition, because I wanted to make sure we had the right final three. Misty Rainbow is a lovely girl who will make an excellent performance artist, someday, I think. But she didn’t deserve to be in this final three, and Ariadne does, and I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any doubt in the voting.” Eames rubs a soothing thumb in circles behind Arthur’s ear and says, “We’re okay, darling, really. Totally, absolutely, utterly.”

“You should be angrier with me,” Arthur tells him. “You really should be.” 

Eames shakes his head. “You didn’t mean it. And you’re sorry. And you love me. We’re okay.” 

Arthur, after a second, nods. “Okay.” And then, after a second, because Arthur’s always asking for Eames to say it and Eames seldom demands it in response, “You’re a really good, really excellent, kind of phenomenal boyfriend.” 

And normally Eames would just shrug and say _I know_ , but now he says, “Yeah?” like he needs to hear Arthur say it. 

So Arthur doesn’t tease or fool around. Arthur says, “You’re the best boyfriend. I never want to have another one. No one’ll live up to you.” 

“Thank you,” Eames says, and the tension leaves his smile, and he tugs Arthur in and kisses his right eyebrow. 

And Arthur knows that Eames didn’t _really_ doubt how Arthur feels, but Arthur also knows how important it is to hear it said out loud. “I should tell you more often,” Arthur says. “I should tell you at least once a day. I’m going to write it in to our schedule.”

Eames chuckles, which makes Arthur feel better. 

Arthur ducks forward to murmur into his ear, “Weird fucking animal roleplay of your choice tonight.” 

Eames laughs outright. 

Arthur smiles and kisses a haphazard patch of his stubble and goes willingly when Eames pulls him into a snuggle. 

“You know why you lost your temper with Alec today?” Eames asks, after a second. “Because he was being a bully. You hate bullies. It’s hard-wired in you. And I’m not your psychologist so I don’t want to force you into some kind of bullshit therapy I’m making up, but I would imagine that there is a small Arthur inside of you who is just really instinctively used to flying out in attack mode when confronted with bullying. Not just bullying of you, but bullying of people you think don’t deserve it. It comes from a protective place inside of you, and I’m glad you’re not panicking about it right now, because honestly, darling, it’s not an entirely bad place. I wish it hadn’t developed the way it had and I’d love to go back in time and fix that for you but I’m not at all angry that you lost your temper. I would, of course, prefer not to be sideswiped in the attack, but you were coming from a good place and I can’t really be angry with you for that.” 

“I shouldn’t include you in the attack, though,” Arthur says. 

“No, you shouldn’t. But that’s okay. You’ll get there. You just need to be loved by me for a little while longer and then your attacks will be much more focused.” 

Arthur is silent up against him for a long moment. “A little while longer, huh?” 

“Just a bit,” Eames says.

“Can I have the rest of our lives?” asks Arthur. 

“We can negotiate,” says Eames lightly. 

Arthur laughs, because he knows he was supposed to. 

“Anyway,” Eames says, “you almost insulted yourself more than you insulted me, with that little comment.” 

“It was mostly just that, at that moment, with him being the way he was being, it burst over me all over again that you were an idiot to have broken your own heart as much as you did to ever spend two seconds with him, Eames. And I say that with love. I say that wishing I’d known what you were doing so I could have saved you the way you’ve kept saving me, so I could have refused to take your hint, so I could have just stayed in your life and spared us all of this.”

“You did save me,” Eames says in a low voice. “You do keep saving me.” 

Arthur lifts his head up from Eames’s shoulder and says, “I want to stop regretting that we lost that time. It’s not that I’m angry, it’s just that I _regret_ it. You know?” 

“I do know. I’m not sure we’ll ever stop regretting. And I think that’s okay. Because it keeps us cherishing our present, I think.” 

“I cherish our present,” Arthur says. And then he whistles, just for Eames’s benefit, just to watch his face light up. Arthur whistles for them the rest of the way home.


	171. Chapter 171

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to pureimaginatrix for pointing out how well plumbing terms would work for their sexual code!

They get home to find their parents watching _EastEnders_ in the living room. 

“Oooh!” says Eames, brightening as soon as he sees what’s on the television. “This is _such_ a great episode.” He’s already sitting down on the couch with all of them before Arthur can even blink. 

“Right?” agrees Maggie. “I’m showing Laura the highlights.” 

“Are you utterly besotted?” asks Eames with complete seriousness. 

Arthur’s mother looks at him in amusement and manages to answer Eames seriously. “It’s certainly interesting.” 

Arthur shakes his head a little bit, because Eamesian attachment to _EastEnders_ will always be a little bit beyond him. 

Maggie says, “How was filming?” 

“Oh,” Eames answers, gaze still on the television, “the usual nonsense.” He waves his hand around. 

Eames, Arthur thinks, is as good at understatement when he wants to be as he usually is at wild hyperbole. 

Arthur leaves them to their _EastEnders_ and goes back into the kitchen and gazes at their whiteboard. They’re leaving for New York in the morning, which means that packing has to happen tonight, and it’s a serious New York trip, with multiple talk show appearances, so Arthur needs to give real thought to his packing. And he doesn’t really feel like it at the moment. He feels exhausted and worn out and it was the longest fucking day and even with talking everything through with Eames, he might not be on the edge of a panic spiral, but he…wants his fleece-and-feather-boa-blanket and…It dawns on him suddenly exactly what he needs. It always takes him so long to figure things about himself out, but doubtless Eames already knew what he needed, which is why Eames hasn’t called to him to come join the _EastEnders_ viewing. 

He goes back to the living room and says, “I just remembered. I have to deal with that bungalow…negotiation…thing.” 

“The what?” asks his mother. 

“Oh, yes,” says Eames. “Arthur has to work. I’ll figure something out for dinner, don’t worry about it.” 

“You’re sure?” says Arthur, clarifying that it’s okay if he just curls up in his office and lets Eames deal with the socializing for a little while. 

“Uh-huh,” says Eames. “Got it covered. We’re good.” Eames winks at him to punctuate the point. 

“Don’t worry about it, love,” says Maggie. “We’ll be fine.” 

Arthur looks at his mother, who gives him a genuinely unclouded smile, and decides that everything’s under control for the moment. 

He stops by their bedroom and gets his fleece-and-feather-boa blanket and the book he’s reading and takes them both back to his office, where he curls up on the couch and tries not to feel guilty for escaping. But Arthur thinks if he can just sit quietly for just a little while, he’ll have enough energy to pack and deal with more promotional stuff in New York. 

The book is luckily good and engrossing and Arthur does manage to get distracted from everything he’d ordinarily be worrying about. 

When the knock finally sounds on his office door, he’s surprised by how much time has gone by. “Come in,” he calls, stretching out a kink in his neck. 

Eames sticks his head around the door. “How’s the bungalow coming?” 

“There is no bungalow, you know,” Arthur tells him. 

Eames looks vaguely offended as he enters the room fully. “I know. It was my code, remember?” 

“I didn’t know if maybe you’d forgotten.” 

“I never forget any of our extremely important codes,” Eames says, crawling his way onto the couch with Arthur and inelegantly dropping his head into Arthur’s lap. “Windows, doors, fixer-uppers, plumbing terms, baa, kitten, quack—”

“Most of those are not at all part of our code,” Arthur tells him. 

“You’re rubbish at remembering our code,” sighs Eames, looking up at him. His expression grows solemn. “How are you doing, darling? Really?” 

“I feel much better,” Arthur says truthfully. “I just needed a moment.” 

“I know.” Eames shifts so he can press a kiss randomly to the bit of Arthur’s torso that happens to be nearest to his mouth. “Care for dinner?” 

“Did you just order pizza and eat it in front of _EastEnders_?” asks Arthur, running his hand through Eames’s hair. 

“No,” says Eames, indignant. 

“Christ, did you try to get them all to eat raw cake batter for dinner?” 

“No. Our parents _cooked_.” 

The proclamation surprises Arthur. “Wait, what?” 

“They made me take them to the supermarket, and they have made us a proper roast dinner.” 

Arthur stares down at Eames, his mouth watering. “With mashed potatoes and gravy?” 

“Would it be a proper roast dinner without mashed potatoes and gravy?” 

“I have never heard anything so delicious in my life,” says Arthur fervently. 

“You act as if I don’t fill your mouth with delicious things all the time,” remarks Eames. 

“If you say anything like that in front of our parents, you won’t be filling my mouth with anything for an indefinitely long period of time,” replies Arthur. 

“But you promised me weird fucking animal roleplay tonight,” grins Eames. 

“Also not something you’re allowed to mention in front of our parents.” 

“Understood,” says Eames, grinning, and then rolling so that he can get himself sitting up more. “Before we go and eat dinner, can I have a proper kiss?” 

“Only if you don’t muss my hair,” says Arthur, smiling irresistibly. 

“I love you madly,” says Eames, and kisses him.


	172. Chapter 172

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just went on a trip to New York City! And I knew the boys had a trip there coming up so I thought of them the whole time. :-)

Eames likes New York. That makes sense, because Arthur thinks that Eames fits naturally into energetic cities. Arthur understands why Eames was always the center of chaos in his tiny English village; it simply wasn’t _big_ enough for him, there just wasn’t enough _happening_. They get to New York after an uneventful train ride and Eames is practically bouncing around. 

“This is Penn Station,” he announces, as if he’s giving a tour. 

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. “That is what the conductor just said.” 

“Always a Penn Station,” says Eames, “never a pen _cil_ station.” 

“That’s not what Penn Station stands for,” says Arthur. 

“No, Penn Station stands for light and truth and the American way,” intones Eames. 

“Where do you get this stuff?” asks Arthur, trying to sound long-suffering but he knows he must be smiling because Eames just smiles at him and kisses his right dimple. 

“This way,” says Arthur, trying to keep track of all of his Eameses. His mother is right next to him so he has no need to worry about her. The Eameses are like wandering ducklings. Albert is already contemplating buying souvenirs and Maggie is saying, “Not in the train station, that is the worst place to buy them.” 

Eames says, “You really want to buy souvenirs off street corners where the shirts have New York with an ‘e’ at the end.” 

“Like Old English style?” asks Albert. 

“Or like a typo,” says Eames. 

“Arthur,” says Maggie, “tell Albert this is the worst place to buy a souvenir.” 

“It’s the worst place to buy a souvenir,” Arthur agrees. “After lunch we’ll do some proper sight-seeing and buy souvenirs. This way, please.” He tries to coax the Eameses toward the cab stand. 

Eames says, “We’re not taking the subway?” because Eames fucking loves the New York subway because Eames is a fucking lunatic who manages to find inspiration on the fucking subway. 

Arthur says, “Not with all the suitcases, we’ll take the subway to meet Saito for lunch.” 

Eames brightens at that. 

“We’ll have to take two cabs,” Arthur says, because he doesn’t feel like squashing everything into one. “You know which hotel we’re staying in, right?” 

“Yes,” Eames says. “We’ll be fine. See you there.” And then he and his parents actually manage to get into a cab. 

His mother says, “Their enthusiasm is so endearing.” 

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. 

There’s a moment of silence. 

“Also exhausting,” adds Arthur’s mother. 

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. 

***

When he and his mother get to the hotel, there are no Eameses in sight. And they left before them, so they should have beaten them there. 

“Oh, no,” says Arthur, and calls Eames. 

Eames answers with, “Darling, I’m fairly sure I have the right place. Bates Motel, right?” 

“Ha ha,” says Arthur. “Where are you?” 

“Look up,” says Eames. 

Arthur looks up. The lobby is an open atrium, and Eames is on the level above them, leaning on the wrought-iron railing. 

He waves and says, “Darling, I hate to break it to you like this, but I’ve caught sight of the most stunning specimen of a man just now.” 

Arthur decides to play along. “Oh, have you?” he asks, gesturing for his mother to follow him over to the escalator up to where Eames is. 

“Mmm. I am tempted to try to pull him but I fear he’s far out of my league.” 

“And also there’s the fact that you’re dating me,” Arthur reminds him. 

“Technicality. What are the odds of my getting him into bed tonight, do you think?” 

At the top of the escalator, Arthur looks at Eames and says into his phone, “Pretty good,” before ending the call and walking over to him. “Tell me you’ve already checked in.” 

“I didn’t even have to. This hotel practically had a welcoming committee for us. In the dining room behind me here they’ve reserved for us a table overlooking the park and some welcoming champagne and tea service. My parents, as you can imagine, are in raptures. Shall we?” Eames gestures toward the dining room. 

Arthur steps aside so his mother can go in front of him. Eames’s parents are waving them down from their table by the window. Arthur says to Eames, “A welcoming committee?” 

“The network is pulling out all the stops.” 

“We’ve already signed,” says Arthur, bewildered. “We didn’t ask for all this extra stuff.” 

“They must just love us a lot.” Eames shrugs. 

Arthur frowns a little, because it seems suspicious. 

Eames says, “We’ll ask Saito about it at lunch. For now, we’ll have a spot of tea, and then apparently a little bird told them that you like massages, because they’re giving us a tour of the spa and letting us have our pick of services for later today.” 

Arthur pauses, then says, “Okay, I approve of all of this.”


	173. Chapter 173

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our lives, Dear Readers, are all about to change. 
> 
> My semester is over. Which means this weekend I start the two-day drive back home. Which means everything about my life is about to get way busier and less manageable. Will there still be NBT being posted? Oh, yes, of course. But will it be as regularly scheduled as it is now? Probably not. If I had to hazard a guess, it'll probably go up much later than it is now, closer to 11 pm or midnight on East Coast time. I know that throws off everything about the comment parties, for which I apologized, but I never thought the thing was going to go on for this long!! I thought for sure it would be done by the time my semester was over!

Saito picks a restaurant that manages to be dim even in the middle of the day. And, even though it’s filled with people, everyone seems to be talking in a hush. It’s the kind of restaurant where Arthur feels like the napkins should just be hundred-dollar bills, there’s so much money floating around the place. 

Even Eames is restrained, murmuring his drink order to the waiter who arrives. Saito sits across the table from them, looking extremely grave. Arthur wonders again what it must be like to meet with Saito when your career _isn’t_ going well. 

Eames finishes ordering and the waiter departs and Saito keeps leveling a steady, unflickering gaze on them. Arthur waits him out, because Arthur is used to people trying crazy negotiating tactics on him. He doesn’t think Saito is trying a crazy negotiating tactic but he’s used to dealing with silence. 

Eames hates silence. Even when it’s just Arthur being silent for a little while, he knows that it grates on Eames, makes him fidgety and concerned. 

Eames takes a sip of his water, clearly to have something to do. 

Saito says finally, “Tell me how things are going.” 

“Good,” says Eames, looking relieved to have an excuse to jump in and start talking. 

Arthur once again marvels at how Saito ever became Eames’s agent in the first place. 

“You’re happy?” asks Saito, studying them with what seems like close concern. “Because that is, of course, my top priority: to be sure you are happy.” 

It could almost sound sarcastic, except that Arthur knows Saito is perfectly serious and, well, it _is_ his job. 

“We’re happy,” Eames says, and then looks at Arthur. 

Arthur nods. “Very happy.” 

“The network tells me they’ve already begun introducing you to other people you might want to work with on your new show.” 

Arthur thinks of Kalinda and says, “Yes.”

“But we don’t have to make a decision about that until after our holiday, right?” Eames confirms. “That’s what you said.” 

“I did say that. I merely wished to know if you had been thinking about it at all.” 

“We’re thinking about it,” says Eames, tearing apart a roll, “but we really need a bit of a break once this live taping is over.” 

“Of course,” says Saito, and sips his coffee, because Saito is the type of person who drinks coffee with lunch. “You two have been working extremely hard and it is important to take time for yourselves. I wouldn’t want you to get burned out. But, while you are away, perhaps you might mull over in your heads the fact that the network wishes to call your show _Banter_.” 

“Banter?” Arthur echoes. 

“It’s just a suggestion from them,” says Saito. “And it is what you’re known for.” 

“Exactly,” says Eames. “It’s a bit on-the-nose. And it isn’t even a pun.” 

“Which is its main recommendation,” Arthur tells him. 

Arthur swears that Saito hides a smile behind his coffee cup. Then he says, “Where is it you two are going to unwind?”

“The Virgin Islands,” answers Eames. 

“Where are you staying?” 

“Why?” counters Eames, after a second. 

Saito’s eyebrows lift. “I was merely going to arrange for a greeting like the one you received at the hotel this morning.” 

“That was you?” says Arthur. 

Eames says, “Where we’re staying in the Virgin Islands is a surprise for Arthur. And yeah, that was you?” 

Saito gives them a look that is equal parts withering, despairing, and resigned. “Did you think that you had a magical fairy godmother benefactor?” 

“Saito,” says Eames earnestly, “if we had a fairy godmother, we are both convinced she would look like you.” 

“Mr. Eames, I make a conscious choice to interpret everything you say as favorably as possible,” Saito replies calmly. 

“And that is why we get along so well,” says Eames. 

Arthur ignores all of that pointlessness. “We didn’t need all that stuff,” he says. 

Saito gives him a mild look and sips his coffee. “Didn’t you enjoy it?” 

“Well, yes,” Arthur says, “but the spa treatments and everything—”

“You love to go to the spa,” Saito points out. 

The waiter brings them their food, momentarily distracting Arthur. 

“Thank you,” he says to the waiter, and then to Saito, “I do love to go to the spa, but—how do you know I love to go to the spa?” 

Saito slices himself a sliver of salmon and says, “You have listed it in interviews as one of your favorite ways to unwind. And I make it my business to remember important things like that about my clients.” Saito puts the sliver of salmon in his mouth and chews. 

Eames says, “I am not a huge fan of spa treatments.” 

“I thought you could admire the design of the place during Arthur’s treatment,” responds Saito. 

Arthur says, “Look, it’s all a lovely gesture, but we don’t want you to think—”

“You didn’t have a problem with any of it when you thought it was from the network,” says Saito, sipping his coffee again. 

Arthur thinks of the combination of salmon and coffee and tries not to wrinkle his nose. 

Eames says, “Yeah, but we’ve been working our arses off for the network—”

“Exactly. And giving me a cut. So it’s my gesture of gratitude. And trust me, it was all quite simple to arrange. Now. What are you planning on doing with your parents tonight?” 

Arthur has a list of possibilities. He tried to narrow them down on the train but the Eameses were excited about everything and that wasn’t very helpful so he figures eventually he’s just going to pick a couple of activities and just announce them to everyone. So he says truthfully, “We haven’t decided. It’s Eames’s parents’ first time in New York, so they kind of want to do everything.” 

“How did you know our parents are with us?” asks Eames curiously. 

“You asked me if requesting a limo so your parents could go to the promo shooting with you was unreasonable. I assumed that you would also bring your parents with you to New York. And I have a proposal.” 

“I am very flattered,” says Eames, “but Arthur and I are in a very committed, strictly monogamous—”

Saito ignores him with barely an eyelash flatter. It really is why Saito gets along so well with them. “Allow me to escort all of your parents to a show tonight. Your two parents, Mr. Eames, and, Arthur, your mother.” 

Arthur had not expected that. He says stupidly, “Oh.” 

“The two of you can have a romantic evening to yourself in the city before all of your appearances tomorrow. How does that sound?” 

“Incredible,” says Eames. “You don’t mind?” 

“Mind? I would be delighted. I have long wished to meet your parents.”


	174. Chapter 174

“You think this is a good idea?” Arthur says, once they are in a cab. 

“Not really,” Eames says, “you know I love the subway, but you said it would be—”

“Not the _cab_ , Eames, I’m not asking if the _cab_ is a good idea. Letting our parents and Saito join forces. You think that’s a good idea?” 

“‘Join forces.’” Eames gives him an amused look. “It’s not like they’re a bunch of scary empires and we’re the Rebel Alliance.” 

“I don’t understand that reference,” says Arthur, even though he’s aware that it’s something to do with _Star Wars_ but he has bigger things to worry about than untangling Eames’s confusing pop culture references.

“ _Darling_ ,” groans Eames, “with our night to ourselves here in Manhattan we are watching _Star Wars_.” 

“Your parents, for instance, will probably tell Saito about the time you got so much tar in your hair while trying to be a mixed media artist that you had to chop it all off. And that time you apparently put makeup on a sheep, which we haven’t properly discussed yet and we should, what the fuck is it with you and sheep?” 

“Hey, you’re the one who had a sheep stuffed animal,” Eames points out. 

“When I was _three_ ,” says Arthur. “That is perfectly normal.” 

“And when I said we should roleplay shepherds, you immediately started playing the part of a sheep. Just saying.” 

“We’re changing the subject,” Arthur decides, “back to our scary super-agent taking our poor, innocent parents out on the town tonight.” 

“It’s a Broadway show, darling. Our parents will all be delighted. And Saito isn’t scary.” 

“Saito is fucking terrifying,” Arthur corrects him flatly. 

“He’s just, you know, intense.” 

“Eames, today when the waiter came over and asked him if he was done with his fish, he literally stabbed my steak knife into its carcass before saying yes.” 

“Yeah, did you notice how he ordered fish?” Eames asks. “That’s because he was sending us a message.” 

“A message about seafood?” 

“About how he’d try to serve us poisoned fish. That’s why I ordered chicken.” 

“He could just have poisoned the chicken.” 

“Harder to make it look like an accident.” 

“We are literally sitting here debating different ways he might try to kill us, and you’re insisting that he’s not scary.” 

“He’s not _actually_ going to kill us, darling. Or our parents. Or anyone. He’s a nice bloke who works really hard on our behalves and is clearly very fond of us, which I personally find sweet. I feel like he knows everything about you. He’s practically a better boyfriend than I am.” 

There are times when Arthur would be in a mood and tease Eames here and agree, but Arthur says honestly, “It’s hard to be a better boyfriend than you.” 

He’s pleased he went the serious route when Eames beams at him and then leans forward to kiss under his jaw. “He’s going to wine and dine our parents and absolutely dazzle them and they’re going to love it and they’re going to ask why we are so boring and disappointing in comparison.” 

“And this sounds like a good result to come out of the evening to you, does it?” 

“It does. Because while Saito’s wining and dining our parents, I’m going to wine and dine you.” 

“Hmm,” says Arthur, but he can feel his resolve disintegrating, because Eames is unparalleled when he decides to pull out the romantic stops and Arthur might be in the mood to be spoiled like that. Arthur is _always_ in the mood to be spoiled. Arthur is the most spoiled person he knows and it’s disgusting but he still scratches his fingers into the short hair on the nape of Eames’s neck and says, “Tell me more.” 

“I haven’t decided yet,” says Eames. “I might use the time you’re getting a massage to decide exactly how I want to lay Manhattan at your feet.”

“You don’t have to,” Arthur says, because Arthur manages to balance his decadent desire to always be spoiled with guilt over the level of indulgence he craves. “We can just stay in our room and eat room service and watch _Star Wars_.” 

“I know,” says Eames, and kisses Arthur’s temple. “I’ll find us a middle ground, how’s that?” 

“Don’t go to a lot of trouble,” says Arthur. “We’ve got a lot going on—” 

“Darling, stop worrying about it. But are we agreed about our parents going with Saito?” 

“We’ll ask them if they want to,” Arthur says. 

“Oh, of course,” Eames agrees. 

Arthur looks out the window at the dense crowd of pedestrians on the New York City sidewalk and muses, “What do you think Saito’s like when your career _isn’t_ skyrocketing?” 

“I think he’s probably very soft and cuddly because he knows you need soothing,” answers Eames. 

Arthur turns that over in his mind and says, “Huh.”


	175. Chapter 175

They meet their parents at the edge of Central Park near Columbus Circle. Albert is carrying several bags. 

Eames says, “You managed to buy all of that stuff in the ninety minutes we were at lunch?” 

Albert says, “Yes, and all of it is delightful. Isn’t it delightful, Maggie?” 

“Most of it is,” says Maggie. “There’s a hideous painting of a neon yellow ram that he said you had to have.” 

“That sounds fantastic,” says Eames, and he sounds like he means it. 

Arthur and Maggie exchange a long-suffering _and yet we love him_ look. 

Arthur says, “Did you enjoy Central Park?”

“We people-watched,” Arthur’s mother says. 

“There are some very interesting people here,” says Maggie. 

“I’m fairly convinced some of them are definitely time travelers,” says Albert. “The ones with the twirly villain mustaches and the top hats.” 

“No, those are just the hipsters,” says Arthur. 

“You say that as if you are not a hipster,” remarks Eames. 

“I am definitely not a hipster,” protests Arthur. 

“You’re a posh hipster, darling,” says Eames. 

“How was lunch with Mr. Saito?” asks Arthur’s mother. 

Arthur allows him to be distracted from Eames’s assessment. “It was nice. Speaking of, he has offered to take all of you out to a Broadway show tonight.” 

“Oh, and let you two have a romantic evening alone?” asks Maggie. “That sounds lovely for you two!” 

“You don’t have to go,” Arthur says, because he doesn’t think he would like being randomly taken to a Broadway show by his son’s agent and he doesn’t want them to feel railroaded into it. “Eames and I have lots of romantic evenings alone. I mean, it’s basically every evening when you guys aren’t visiting.” 

“It’s true,” says Eames. “Our lives are nothing but romance. Normally I strew rose petals all about the floors and sometimes I even serenade Arthur on the harp.” 

“No, he doesn’t,” says Arthur. 

“Sometimes I dress up as Cupid but for some reason Arthur insists me in nothing but a diaper isn’t sexy.” Eames shrugs sadly. 

That did happen once and Arthur doesn’t like to dwell on remembering it. “Moving on,” he says. 

“I think a show with Mr. Saito would be lovely,” says his mother. 

Arthur was mostly worried about his mother, because Eameses will happily do almost anything you ask them to do, they are the least picky people Arthur has ever met. But he and his mother are not generally people who like to be shoved into situations where they’re forced to interact with lots of new people, and so far this week has been nothing but that. So Arthur gives her a careful look and says, “You’re sure?” 

His mother says, “To be honest, I’ve been wanting to meet the mysterious Mr. Saito for a while. You and he are both agents, you know, of different types, and I’m very curious to see how like and unlike you he is.” 

Eames says seriously, “My warning to all of you is: Don’t eat any fish he might serve you.” 

“Why not?” asks Maggie blankly. 

“It might be poisoned.” 

“He could poison anything he gives us,” says Maggie, still sounding bewildered. 

“Exactly,” Arthur agrees triumphantly. 

Eames insists, “But it is easier to poison fish because fish start out poisonous anyway.” 

“No, they don’t,” says Maggie, staring at him. 

“Some of them do.” 

“Well,” says Maggie after a second. “We’ll be sure not to eat any poisonous fish he might offer us.” 

“Why would he offer us poisonous fish, though?” asks Arthur’s mother, sounding confused. 

“Because he’s Saito,” says Eames. 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Ignore Eames, he’s talking nonsense.” 

“What should we wear to a show?” asks Maggie. “I’m not sure I brought anything appropriate with me. Oh! We should go shopping! Laura, you promised to give Albert and me a style makeover. What better place than New York?” 

“Could be fun,” says Arthur’s mother, “if you don’t mind spending part of your time in New York in various clothing stores.” 

“Are you kidding?” says Maggie. “Clothing stores in _New York_? What could be better? Albert, don’t you agree?” 

“I’m willing. I need to not be too overshadowed by this Mr. Saito, after all.”

“Arthur, won’t you come for a second opinion?” asks Maggie. “Or is that too much like cheating on Giacomo?” 

“No,” Arthur says hesitantly. “It’s not cheating on Giacomo.” The truth is he loves shopping in New York and he’d love nothing better than the outing but he doesn’t want to abandon Eames. 

Eames, of course, knows how he feels. “Go,” he says, smiling indulgently. “In fact, if you stop to take my father’s measurements, can you shop without him?” 

“Well,” says Arthur. “Not _well_ , we can’t, but I supposed we could grab him something.”

“Because that way I could take him to some hole-in-the-wall New York dive bars and he and I can talk about how pubs are so much better in the UK.” 

Eames hasn’t spent a lot of one-on-one time with his father, so Arthur thinks this sounds like a nice idea. He says, “We’ll manage. We’ll find you something nice,” he promises Albert. 

“Something to outshine Mr. Saito,” says Albert. 

“That will be a bit difficult,” admits Arthur, “but we’ll try.” 

Maggie says, “Is Mr. Saito single? Laura, we are going to glamourize you so much, Mr. Saito won’t know what hit him.” 

“Oh,” says Arthur’s mother, sounding startled at the thought. 

Arthur feels equally startled. 

“Excellent idea,” says Eames. “You bowl over Saito, Laura, and afterward we’ll gossip all about it. I am very curious as to how he kisses.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “Nothing about anything you just said is appropriate, please stop talking now.” 

Eames grins at him and winks.


	176. Chapter 176

Arthur has a legitimately fabulous time shopping with his mother and Maggie. He’d forgotten how fun genuinely enthusiastic company for shopping can be. Eames will tag along good-naturedly but he doesn’t have a sincere affection for it and normally Arthur just goes alone, which works just fine but having people around to make playful comments about certain style ideas is just so much _better_. 

Plus, his mother is actually better at fashion than Arthur and Arthur is astonished at the outfits she puts together for Maggie and herself. Arthur pays, which they only allow him to do based on his promise that he will allow them to buy all of the food on the trip from this point on. Eames will disagree with that, but Arthur figures that’s a fight they can save for another day. 

Arthur doesn’t need any new clothes—Arthur really has more than enough clothes—but his mother and Maggie do convince him to buy a twill blazer in baby blue that Arthur thinks will be perfect for the Virgin Islands. 

Arthur texts Eames when they get back to the hotel and receives an only vaguely coherent text in response that Arthur thinks has something to do with soccer. So Arthur and Maggie and his mother all go to the spa for very relaxing treatments and, when they’re done, they go back to their rooms. Arthur and Eames have their own room but their parents are sharing a two-bedroom suite. With Eames not back yet, Arthur has no real reason to go to his own room and he wants to see his mother and Maggie in their new outfits, so he tags along to their suite, the living area of which is full of an enormous bouquet of flowers that turn out to be from Saito. _Looking forward to an evening of good theater and good company._

“Very smooth,” pronounces Maggie, clearly impressed. 

“Is this what happens right before the poisonous fish?” asks his mother drily. 

“Yeah, he’s buttering you up,” agrees Arthur, tongue firmly in cheek. 

“Butter _does_ make fish better often,” points out Maggie. 

“Even poisonous fish, too, apparently,” says Arthur’s mother. 

And then they burst into laughter together and Arthur smiles, pleased at how happy they both seem to be, and then he waits in the living area while they dress themselves in their new outfits. While he’s waiting, Eames and Albert arrive back from their afternoon together. Arthur is fairly sure they’ve been drinking basically nonstop but they both seem none the worse for wear. Arthur doesn’t know if this is an Eames thing or a British thing; he does know that he would have had to be carried home unconscious if he drank as much as he knows Eames and his father just imbibed. 

Eames says, “How was your afternoon?” and then tries to basically sit on Arthur. 

Okay, maybe a little worse for wear, thinks Arthur. “Lovely. Please sit on your own chair.” Albert is busy basically sticking his face into Saito’s flowers, so Arthur isn’t as embarrassed as he could have been. 

“Spoilsport,” says Eames, and licks his neck rather obscenely before moving to his own chair as requested. 

Arthur tries to dry off his neck and says, “I take it you had a good afternoon?” 

“We had a _magnificent_ afternoon,” says Eames. “All of the pubs here are utter rubbish.” 

“Utter rubbish,” chimes in Albert from over by the flowers. 

“We had to keep going from bar to bar just to see how horrible all of them were,” continues Eames. 

“That must have been very difficult for you to bear,” remarks Arthur with mock gravity. 

“Heinous,” agrees Eames. 

“But we Eameses are good at bearing difficult tasks, eh, Eamesie, my boy?” thunders Albert from the flowers. 

“We are the best. The absolute best.” Eames pauses. “Alcohol helps.” 

“Are these flowers from Saito?” asks Albert. 

Arthur tries not to laugh at how long that took Albert to figure out. “Yes.”

“Is he romancing your mother, Arthur?” 

“No,” Arthur says. “Where are you people getting this idea from? He’s taking all of you out.” 

“Don’t worry, I will not let him get fresh with her,” Albert assures Arthur seriously. 

Arthur says, “I really don’t want to—”

Eames cuts him off by wolf-whistling at their mothers, who have made a coordinated joint entrance, complete with dramatic little twirls. Maggie looks delighted and Arthur’s mother is blushing; it’s a little bit like the reveal on an episode of _Love It or List It_ , thinks Arthur, amused. 

“Spectacular,” Eames proclaims. “Too beautiful for this tiny island.”

“I may as well go naked to this play,” says Albert, “no one would even notice because they’d all be looking at you.” 

“Excellent,” says Maggie. “Just the reaction we were going for. Albert, come and see what we picked out for you.” 

Maggie and Albert disappear into their bedroom. Arthur’s mother sits on the couch, looking quietly pleased. 

Eames says, “And what gorgeous thing did you buy, darling?” 

“A surprise for our vacation,” Arthur says. 

Eames lifts his eyebrows. “You are full of surprises lately.” 

“I’m trying to be more spontaneous,” Arthur says, and actually really means that. 

Eames smiles at him. Then he turns to Arthur’s mother and says, “You look lovely. You’ll have a wonderful time tonight.” 

“Thank you,” she responds. “And have you two decided what you’re going to do?” 

“Oh,” says Eames, winking at Arthur. “It’s a surprise.”


	177. Chapter 177

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I'll get another chapter done tonight or not. If I don't, I wanted to warn all of you that there'll be no chapter tomorrow as tomorrow is Mad Max Day in my life. :-)
> 
> Thank you to scribblscrabbl who suggested they have Earl Grey tea ice cream and GretaOto who encouraged it. 
> 
> And thank you to afiendishthingy who pointed out that sheep should have been the obvious answer to Eames's desert island question.

Saito arrives in a limo. And of course he doesn’t even consider this worth remarking upon. 

“The fact that you not only tolerated but encouraged Mr. Eames’s sense of humor is a credit to both of you and I am indebted to you,” is how he greets Eames’s parents. 

Eames’s parents look as if they don’t know what to do in response. To have struck Eames’s parents speechless is quite impressive, thinks Arthur. 

And then Saito turns to Arthur’s mother and takes her hands. “And Arthur’s mother. Dear lady, to have raised a son with the instinctive patience to complement Eames. I am indebted to you as well.” 

“Oh,” says Arthur’s mother, blushing. “I just, you know, raised him, I didn’t—”

“Nonsense. I shall now spend the rest of the evening attempting to express enough gratitude to all of you.” Saito sweeps his hand toward the limo door he’s holding open. 

Maggie gives them a fluttering little wave of delight on her way in. 

Saito looks at Arthur and Eames and says, “Enjoy your evening.” 

“Bring them back in one piece,” says Eames jovially. 

“No poisonous fish,” agrees Saito, and disappears into the limo. 

Arthur blinks as the limo pulls away. “How did he know about the poisonous fish thing?” 

“I’m telling you, darling, I think he keeps them as pets.” 

“He doesn’t,” sighs Arthur, but then doesn’t feel like thinking about Saito anymore. He turns to Eames and says, “So? What’s the plan tonight?” 

Eames takes a deep breath. “What do you say about going casual?” 

It’s not a thing Arthur usually does if they’re going out in public and there’s a chance he’ll be photographed. It isn’t just that he’s aware he’s got an image to maintain, but more that he prefers to confront the world in complete armor. But it’s old-fashioned now and he knows it. It’s more of a habit than anything else. He feels more comfortable in a good suit, and he loves the way he looks in a good suit, and so he tends to wear them. But he knows Eames loves when he goes casual, and Arthur likes the idea right now. It’ll make for a unique and special evening for them. 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “Let’s go casual.” 

***

Arthur wears jeans and a periwinkle long-sleeved Henley. Eames wears jeans and a t-shirt, because Eames never as cold as Arthur is and generally dresses one layer cooler than Arthur at all times. More importantly, Arthur doesn’t bother to do anything with his hair and lets it wave gently over his forehead. Eames is in love with his hair this way and brushes it out of the way with his nose so he can kiss the top of Arthur’s brow. 

Arthur says, “Where are we going? Can I know now?” 

“I will tell you that we’re heading toward the East Village, how’s that?” says Eames, entwining their hands together. 

“On the subway?” says Arthur. 

“We can take a cab,” replies Eames. 

And Arthur knows that’s a concession to Arthur and so Arthur says, “No, let’s take the subway,” and tugs Eames toward the station. 

Eames is very brightly inquisitive in his people-watching of everyone in the subway car. Arthur plays trivia against himself on his phone because he doesn’t want to attract attention and it’s bad enough his boyfriend is staring at everyone. 

When their subway ride is over and they’re back aboveground, Eames tells Arthur the various interpersonal melodramas that he is sure he witnessed on the subway, and Arthur listens indulgently and lets Eames lead the way. 

They end up at a gourmet ice cream place, and Arthur says, “Ice cream for dinner? Really?” because he approves of casual nights, but really, their eating habits are so appalling. 

“We’re just starting with dessert first. Which is what one should always do,” says Eames. “This place has Earl Grey tea ice cream. It’s basically like we just popped in somewhere for a cuppa.”

“You are the best rationalizer that I have ever met,” Arthur says. 

Eames practically preens with pleasure over that. 

They split several scoops of really delicious ice cream, as they stroll along the city streets. Arthur would say they’re strolling aimlessly except that Eames keeps announcing interesting facts about the architecture of the buildings they’re passing, so Arthur is pretty sure he planned the route for Arthur’s benefit. 

Arthur says in fond amazement, “When did you learn all this stuff?” 

Eames answers, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just making it up as I go along.” 

They end up getting hungry for real food and eventually settle on a burger place. They’re given a table in the back and forego the beer selection for a bottle of wine and Arthur peruses the menu and says, “This place has a lamb burger.” 

Eames laughs. “There’s an obvious animal we missed for my desert island question: sheep. You can get wool off of sheep. You could have knit sweaters.” 

“I’m alarmed by what you would do stuck on an island with sheep,” drawls Arthur. 

The burgers when they come are delicious and juicy enough that Arthur has to pause to lick drippings off his wrist. Eames’s eyes darken and watch the action closely. Arthur grins at him knowingly. 

Eames says, “I really love this place. Lick your wrist again.” 

Arthur laughs and says, “It’s a good thing I didn’t order anything sexy at lunch with Saito.” 

Eames makes a face. “I can’t think sexy thoughts when Saito’s around. I feel like he would _know_.” 

“He doesn’t read mind, Eames,” says Arthur, amused. “What do you think he is, in your head?” 

“It’s possible he’s some kind of dragon,” says Eames, primly. 

Arthur bursts out laughing. 

“I’m serious,” Eames protests. 

“He isn’t a _dragon_ , oh, my God. He’s just a _person_.” 

“A person who is currently seducing your mother.” 

“Fuck you,” says Arthur good-naturedly, as Eames fills his wineglass again. “And I’d rather a person be seducing my mother than a dragon.” 

“He could be a good dragon. Like Pete.” 

“I don’t think Pete was the name of the dragon. Pete was the little boy who _had_ the dragon.” 

Eames blinks at him. “Is that a ridiculous children’s movie that you have actually _seen_?”

“Again I say to you: fuck you.” 

“Promises, promises, darling,” says Eames. 

The conversation reminds Arthur suddenly. “What do you think of them wanting to call our show _Banter_?”

Eames shrugs. “It’s completely predictable, so it doesn’t surprise me.” 

“We must be able to do better than that.” He tries it out. “On the next episode of _Banter_. Don’t miss the next season of _Banter_. I don’t know.” 

“And then would we be Banter House Services?” 

“I hate that. If we’re going to do something like that, let’s at least do Badinage.” 

“Badinage House Services?” 

“Exactly. Means the same thing as banter. Sounds fancier.” 

“Sounds filthier,” says Eames. “Say it in French for me, darling.” 

Arthur smiles at Eames and says in rapid-fire French, “If you took me back to our hotel right now, I would tie you to the bed and make you forget every word but my name and maybe ‘please.’” 

Eames looks dry-mouthed at him. “What’d you say?” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow and sips his wine and then realizes. “Wait. I’m a little drunk. Did you get me drunk on purpose?” 

“Maybe a little bit of purpose,” admits Eames. 

Arthur would like to say that he feels dread at this prospect but what he really feels is the fluttering butterflies of anticipation. He says, “What purpose?”

Eames says, “I’ve got an idea for what happens next. But we’ve got time to kill, so let’s have another bottle of wine, hmm?” 

Arthur looks at him for a moment. Then he decides that he’s willing to play along here. It’s nice to not be at all in charge of the plan for a change. So he shrugs and says, “Okay.”


	178. Chapter 178

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mad Max was amaaaaaazing. Tom Hardy is very hot. Go see it.

It’s coming up on eleven when they get to the club and Arthur draws up short and looks at Eames and says, “Wait, this? This is your plan for the rest of the evening?” 

“Yeah,” says Eames. “You like it, don’t you?” 

“We are surely too old for this sort of club,” Arthur protests. 

“Age is a state of mind, darling.” 

“And we are not at all dressed for clubbing.” 

“What did you used to wear when you went clubbing?” asks Eames, with a leer. “Please tell me it was a tiny thong or something.” 

“I would have brought my peacock Speedo with me,” rejoins Arthur drily, “had I known we were going clubbing.” 

“I want you to know,” Eames seriously, “that you are, by far, going to be the hottest bloke in the place.”

“And we’ve got _The Today Show_ in the morning,” Arthur reminds him. “It’s already late.” 

“We’ll stay for three songs,” Eames says, “and then we’ll go back to the hotel and sleep it off. Three songs won’t hurt us.” 

It’s been a long time since Arthur went clubbing, and he’s pretty sure he’s outgrown it, but if Eames wants to get a taste for himself, three songs sounds like a good compromise. 

Except that Arthur completely forgets that he fucking loves a good club. What the fuck, why had he stopped doing this? It’s still early when they get in and the dancefloor has people on it but isn’t too crowded and the beat is fucking fantastic and Arthur thinks this is the most brilliant idea Eames has ever had. 

He turns to tell him that to find Eames frowning faintly at the dancefloor, looking uncertain. “Do you want to dance?” Eames shouts at him when he sees him looking at him. 

Eames so seldom looks uncertain that Arthur momentarily wonders if he should say they should just leave. But the music is throbbing and they’re already here and three songs will be over before they know it and maybe Eames will end up liking it a little. 

“Shots!” Arthur shouts at Eames.

Eames tips his head quizzically and leans in. 

Arthur shouts directly in his ear. “Shots!” 

Eames looks alarmed and shakes his head. 

“Listen, pub boy!” Arthur shouts in his ear. “Let me show you how to do a shot.” 

Eames cocks an eyebrows at him and gestures to the bar. 

Arthur shouts at the bartender, “Make us a couple of flaming shots, I don’t care what.” 

The bartender nods and after a minute or so slides two fiery shots across to them, which of course attracts them a bunch of attention. 

Eames looks amused and blows his out before throwing it back but Arthur picks up one of the cocktail straws clustered on the bar and sucks his drink down while it’s still flaming, relieved that he still could remember how to do the trick. There’s a round of applause for him and he stands up with his head spinning from the kick of the alcohol. That, he thought, was a crazy fucking bad idea, but the look in Eames’s eyes makes it totally worth it. Arthur would call for another round except that the music is playing and he shouts, “Now we dance,” and pulls Eames onto the dancefloor. 

He is not dressed for this and the dancefloor is hot and sweaty and crowds up quickly and Arthur doesn’t fucking care. The press of bodies merely presses Arthur closer in to Eames and Arthur thinks how he’s never done this before with an actual boyfriend and it’s fucking awesome. The deejay is fabulous and the beats don’t stop, keep catching Arthur up on the crest and pushing him closer into Eames. Arthur’s desperately hot and finally just pulls his shirt up and over his head. Eames grabs it before it can fall to the floor and Arthur thinks how Eames is the absolute best and kisses him wet and messy, grinding his hips against his. Eames is hard and Arthur is convinced he can hear Eames’s breath catch even with the loud music throbbing around them. 

Arthur shifts meaningfully against Eames again, and yes, there’s a definite gasp, and another one, and then Eames tears his mouth away and says, “Christ.”

Arthur hums with pleasure and dances his hand down between them, tapping his finger over Eames’s erection. “Let me take care of that for you,” he says into Eames’s ear. 

Eames catches Arthur’s hand and moves it up and away. “Not here,” he says. “Are you mad?” 

Arthur shifts to get his thigh in between Eames’s and then he holds Eames’s gaze and slides, slow and easy and sinuous. 

Eames’s eyes flicker and his hands go to Arthur’s hips and he says, “ _Fuck_ ,” and arches to get better friction. 

“That’s it,” says Arthur, “to the beat,” and times his movements to the rhythm. He could be dancing, honestly, except for the fact that Eames is basically straddling his thigh. 

Eames puts his face against Arthur’s neck, panting, “Jesus fucking Christ,” while he rides the drag of Arthur’s leg. 

It’s torture from Arthur’s perspective. Eames is getting the best of the position, and everything about it is too slow, and Arthur wants it that way. He feels like every nerve ending is on fire. He feels like if Eames got a good hand on him he’d explode with one stroke. His eyes are squeezed shut and his breaths are heaving. He throws his head back to try to create some space and Eames sucks a love bite underneath his jaw and Arthur’s rhythm stutters. 

“Fuck, darling, faster,” murmurs Eames thickly into his ear, and tries to trap Arthur to do it himself. 

Which is when Arthur steps away. It’s a tiny step given the confines of the crowd all around them but it’s enough space that Eames almost staggers over. He looks at Arthur, flushed and dazed, and Arthur says, “Take me home. Take me home right now.” He doesn’t know where he gets the self-possession to demand it. He guesses it’s because he’s over the idea that a hook-up in a club bathroom was ever hot. 

They stumble onto the street together, Eames trying to hail a cab and pull Arthur’s shirt back over his head all in one movement. It’s a mess, and Eames ends up basically shoving Arthur into the cab while his shirt is caught halfway over his head. 

Eames gives the address of the hotel and Arthur sits as far away from him as he can get and innocently sucks on his fingers. 

Eames basically slams him into the wall as soon as they’re in the hotel room, and the kiss is a clash of teeth and tongue. “Fucking tease,” Eames mutters into his mouth, and pins his hips and drags his erection up Arthur’s thigh. 

Arthur bumps his head back against the wall, feeling frantic, gasping, “Christ, I fucking want you so much, fucking touch me—”

“Not so fast,” Eames purrs at him, tucking his knee up against Arthur’s groin, and Arthur gets in one delicious thrust against it, groaning, before Eames takes it away. “You think you get to go first, kitten? After all that? Me first, hmm?” Eames must have been dealing with his pants, although Arthur’s way too far gone to be worrying about the logistics of what’s happening, but Eames closes Arthur’s hand over him. 

Arthur strokes instinctively, and normally he would build Eames up but Eames is already literally panting for it and he’s babbling things like, “Faster, that’s it, fucking Christ, darling, you have no idea how good you feel, keep, fucking, fuck—”

Arthur milks the climax for a second, through the weight of Eames collapsed up against him, and then says, “My turn, hurry up, just fucking touch me already,” and tries to shrug Eames off of him. 

Eames grasps him behind his back and whirls him away from the wall and onto the bed. It’s a small room so there’s barely a step to go. Arthur falls backward, and Eames undoes his jeans and pulls at his briefs and Arthur squirms and begs and wonders what is taking Eames so fucking long, and Eames bends and swallows him down and Arthur’s world immediately explodes into a million fucking shards of light. 

Eames, afterward, crawling his way up his body, sounds almost surprised. “Christ, you were desperate, I barely touched you.” 

Arthur is too exhausted to even open his eyes. He manages, he thinks, to say something like, “That was fucking amazing,” and then he falls asleep.


	179. Chapter 179

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a lot of you referencing this in the comments, but yes, that whole scene last chapter was a total homage to delires's mega-hot and fantastic Chav!verse (http://archiveofourown.org/series/8712).

Arthur wakes to the most hideous noise. 

Underneath him, Eames groans and says, “What the fuck is that fucking noise? Fuck.” 

Dimly Arthur recognizes what it is. “An alarm,” he manages, and tries to go in search of it. He’s crusty and sticky and gross. “Ow,” he says, wincing in discomfort, as he finally fishes out his cell phone. 

“Fuck,” says Eames meaningfully. “Why would you set a fucking alarm? Why are you so bloody obsessed with alarms all the time?” 

“I don’t know,” mumbles Arthur, finally getting the thing to shut up and deciding to go back to sleep on Eames’s chest, even though it’s disgusting, because it’s also right there and he’s tired. 

And then he sits up, suddenly wide awake. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Eames, since they might have been a little bit stuck together there and Arthur basically just ripped them apart. 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur breathlessly. “We’re supposed to be on _The Today Show_. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He rolls out of bed, promptly feels nauseous, and sits on the floor until the room stops spinning and he thinks he’s going to be able to keep down the contents of his stomach. 

“Fuck,” says Eames again, and his voice sounds muffled. “Is that true, or are you making that up to be mean?” 

“Get up,” Arthur says, getting up and giving Eames a little shove. He’s pulled his pillow over his head, so Arthur pulls it off of him. “Not joking,” he says. “Please get up.” He kisses Eames’s face haphazardly to lessen the harshness of his words. 

And then he darts into the bathroom and into the shower. He is truly disgusting and he’s covered in…glitter. Other substances he was expecting, but…glitter? 

He hears Eames come into the bathroom, so he says, “I am covered in glitter, what the fuck. When did that happen?” 

Eames pokes his head into the shower with Arthur and says, “I hate to break it to you, darling, but the glitter is the least of your problems,” and then gestures to a point on Arthur’s neck.

Doubtless the point where Eames sucked a hickey onto him last night. 

“Fuck,” Arthur groans, and splashes some water in Eames’s direction. “Do not even think about coming in here. This is not our spaceship of a shower.” 

Eames winks at him and draws his head back out of the shower, and Arthur scrubs at his hair, hearing Eames leave the bathroom. 

When Arthur steps out of the shower, Eames comes back into the bathroom and hands him an ice cold bottle of water. 

“You’re a saint,” Arthur says, taking it gratefully and gulping down a lot of it while Eames brushes a kiss over Arthur’s head and steps into the shower. “Where did you get that?” Arthur calls over the sound of the water Eames turns on. 

“There’s a fridge in the room, darling,” Eames replies, sounding amused. 

Christ, thinks Arthur, looking at his reflection in the mirror. He is slow on the uptake; this is going to be a dull interview. And, he considers, he is going to need a lot of makeup. 

Arthur is mostly dressed by the time Eames comes out of the shower, even if he isn’t taking as much glee in the process as he usually does. He is slumped in the room’s armchair, contemplating the enormous hurdle of putting his shoes on. 

Eames, of course, has the luxury of dressing casually, and he pulls on jeans and a hideous shirt with apparently little effort and then comes to stand over Arthur. He looks like he’s on the verge of smirking, and Arthur thinks he’s going to fucking kill him. 

Eames tuts at him and shakes his head and says, “Whose idea was it to go out dancing last night?” 

Arthur gives him a withering look. 

Eames laughs and says, “Sorry. I’m sorry, darling.” Then he sits at Arthur’s feet and actually _puts his shoes on for him_. 

And Arthur’s having a horrible morning and he’s been mostly blaming that on Eames but he watches Eames carefully tie his shoes for him and it’s not that he feels better but he does feel overcome with adoration. 

When Eames is done, Arthur slides off the armchair onto the floor with him and leans into a hug. “Sorry,” he mumbles against him. “I’m sorry.” 

“For what, darling?” Eames asks, brushing a kiss over the shell of his ear. 

“You deserved a good afterglow this morning. You didn’t get it.” 

“I had a pretty fucking fantastic afterglow last night, darling, trust me.” 

“Me snoring on your chest, covered in grossness?” asks Arthur archly. 

“I always count you snoring on my chest as a victory,” says Eames. 

“You’re so ridiculous,” sighs Arthur. 

“And this is all my fault, so I hereby apologize to you. I was supposed to make us leave after three songs,” Eames points out. 

“I didn’t want to leave after three songs,” says Arthur. “I really like dancing.” 

“Kitten, you really like _something_ , but I wouldn’t call anything that happened last night _dancing_ ,” drawls Eames. “You sexual empire magnate, you.” 

Arthur snorts laughter and lifts his head up from Eames’s shoulder to look at him. “I’m not like that all the time. Before you think I fucked my way through clubs in college or something. I genuinely do like dancing. I just…was dancing with the hottest person in the club, so, you know…” Arthur shrugs, because it’s better than saying out loud the embarrassing fact of _you make me lose control_. 

Which Eames knows anyway. He leans in to kiss the tip of Arthur’s nose. “We’ll do it again sometime when we can properly enjoy the morning-after.” 

“Don’t let me order shots again,” says Arthur. “It was the shot that did it.” 

“But, darling, that was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen you do.” 

“I think you’ve seen me do other sexy things, Viscount,” Arthur points out. “You saw me do other sexy things _last night_.” 

“Mmm,” agrees Eames, and noses underneath Arthur’s jaw, against the mark he made the night before. “I am going to be thinking about that all day today. I’m going to be a disaster in the interviews. You’ll have to cover for me, darling. And by ‘cover for me’ I mean that you should refrain from sucking on your fingers.” 

Arthur can’t help that he laughs. “Fuck, I really did that, didn’t I?” 

Eames growls playfully against Arthur’s skin. 

Arthur’s cell phone rings. 

Eames sighs and moves away from him. “What is this world where we are not just allowed to have sex in peace whenever we want?” 

“It’s called the real world,” Arthur says, finding his cell phone and answering his mother’s call. 

“Arthur, where are you two? Didn’t you say we had to meet to go over to _The Today Show_?” 

“Yes,” Arthur says, checking his watch, and he and Eames are running late. “We’re coming now.” He ends the call and looks at Eames. “Ready?” 

“The real world is way overrated,” Eames says, picking himself up off the floor. 

“I don’t know,” Arthur says honestly, as he opens their hotel room door. “I think our real world is pretty fucking good.” 

Eames catches him in the hotel hallway and presses him against the wall and kisses his chin and says, “Our real world is phenomenal.”


	180. Chapter 180

“You boys were out late last night,” Maggie remarks, after they get settled in the limo that’s been sent to take them to _The Today Show_. 

Arthur looks at her in alarm, wondering if it’s that obvious. “I mean, not really. What makes you say that?” 

Maggie looks surprised. “You weren’t here when we got in from the play.” 

“Oh,” Arthur realizes. Maybe he doesn’t look too obviously like death warmed over. “No, we weren’t.” 

“We went dancing,” Eames says, which makes it sound like they were doing the fucking foxtrot instead of what they were actually doing. 

“Oh, that sounds lovely!” exclaims Maggie. “Did you have a nice time?” 

“Unparalleled,” says Eames. 

Arthur changes the subject. “How was the play? What’d you see?” 

“ _The King and I_ ,” Maggie says. “And it was exceptional. Wasn’t it exceptional?” 

Albert and Arthur’s mother agree it was exceptional. 

“And Mr. Saito is simply so sweet,” Maggie continues. 

Arthur blinks at her. 

Eames outright boggles. “‘Sweet’? Is that what you just said?” 

“Yes, he’s darling, Eamesie. You should have said. He’s such a sweet, little pussycat.” 

Eames looks like he’s on the verge of being strangled with incredulity. Arthur just keeps staring at Maggie. 

“We told him how you were worried about poisonous fish and he just laughed and laughed and said that you boys are his favorite clients because of how funny you are.” 

“We’re not funny,” manages Eames. “We’re _serious_.” 

“Oh, love,” says Maggie, laughing merrily at him. 

Arthur looks at his mother. “I suppose you thought he was a sweet, darling pussycat, too? Because actually he’s a shark of an agent. I mean, that’s what you want in an agent.” 

His mother is blushing. “He’s a shark of an agent the way you’re a shark of an agent. When you’re not in agent mode, you’re simply very nice.” 

“Laura _loved_ Mr. Saito,” says Maggie. She gives the word “loved” at least seven syllables. 

Arthur blinks between his mother and Maggie several times. 

His mother, still blushing, says, “He was simply very nice.” 

“He made her promise she would come into the city so he could take her to a play next time,” Maggie tells Arthur helpfully. 

“It’s not a date,” Arthur’s mother says hastily, and Arthur thinks wildly that Eames would say that that’s exactly what she’d say if it was a date. “I had simply mentioned during dinner how much I like plays. It was before I knew we were going to a musical. I felt terrible afterward.” 

Arthur can’t speak, so luckily Eames does it for him. 

He leans in and says, “Wait a second, let me get this straight: Saito—our Saito, our agent Saito—wants you to come back to New York so he can see a play with you.” 

“It’s really not a big deal,” Arthur’s mother says, mainly to Arthur. “You know how these things go.” 

He doesn’t really have any fucking idea how these things go, because he’s not sure he’s ever known about his mother dating anyone before. He’s a horrible son who should have taken more of an interest in her personal life but he just… _didn’t_. And Arthur was never a huge dater himself; he’d never been romanced until there was Eames, and even Eames didn’t do much overt romancing until after they were already together. It seems to Arthur like this should be a big deal, but maybe it’s not, in Saito’s world. 

He’s saved having to come up with anything to say by the fact that they reach the studio. Their parents are funneled off somewhere to watch and Arthur and Eames are led to makeup. 

Arthur says, “Maybe Saito takes all of his clients’ mothers to plays.” 

“That seems likely,” says Eames. 

“Yeah, I think so, too,” says Arthur happily, and then looks at Eames’s raised eyebrow. “Oh. Wait. You didn’t mean that.” 

“Darling. Do you really think there is any possibility Saito is seducing all of his clients’ mothers?”

Arthur frowns. “Well, when you put it that way, I hope not, because then it makes it sound like my mother is just one of many he has on the side. Oh, my God. Everything about this is alarming.” 

“I wonder what Saito’s like in bed,” muses Eames. 

“ _Eames_ ,” says Arthur. 

“I bet he fucks like a dragon.” 

“ _What does that even mean_?” asks Arthur. 

And then they’re at makeup. Arthur tries not to spend the whole time in makeup worrying about whether or not his mother is dating Saito and whether or not he should really be worrying about that. But when he’s not worrying about that, he’s worrying that the makeup artist is disapproving of the state of him. Eames is, naturally, keeping up a light flirtatious conversation with his makeup artist, while Arthur can’t get any sort of conversation started with his. This is why they need Julia on the new show. 

“Ready?” Eames asks, when they’re finally done. 

Arthur nods, because frankly he just wants to get this over with. 

The producer comes over to them, and walks them through the segment, which naturally is something cutesy about judging the walls the hosts have painted. Arthur would have preferred a straight-up interview, but actually the segment goes well. The hosts didn’t take it seriously and Eames and Arthur banter because they can really banter in their sleep if they have to. Which is a good thing, considering how little sleep they got. 

They sign off by promising their usual “big announcement” during the live finale and then Eames says, “Also, I might be a viscount. But that’s not the big announcement.” 

“Okay,” says the host quizzically. 

Arthur says to Eames, once the cameras are off them, “You know, the deal was just that you had to say that on Ellen. You don’t have to say it everywhere.” 

“Oh, but I’m loving it now,” Eames grins at him. “Okay, let’s move this dog-and-pony-show along to the next appearance.”


	181. Chapter 181

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to aadarshinah for suggesting the Eames Size Debate idea, and Brunettepet for bringing up the possibility of Arthur being called "viscountess."

They get to their next talk show appearance with plenty of time to spare, and they meet the co-hosts, Kelly and Michael, and they go over vague topics as quickly as possible. Arthur never trusts those pre-interview prep sessions, because Arthur is a naturally suspicious person. 

And Arthur is immediately suspicious when Kelly starts off their interview by saying, “So. I’ve got to talk to you guys about Twitter.” 

The studio audience whistles and applauds mildly at this, and Arthur hopes that he manages a halfway-decent smile and doesn’t look like he’s wondering if there are pictures of him and Eames basically having sex on the dancefloor last night. 

But Kelly doesn’t bring up any indecent photographs of them. Kelly just says, “No, because I’ve got to tell you, following this show on Twitter is where it’s at, am I right?” She appeals to the audience for support. 

The audience gives her that support. 

Eames says, “Arthur and I have been fortunate to have had really good interactions on Twitter with everyone, it’s been great. I mean, you hear horror stories all the time, and really, we’ve been very lucky.” 

“Speaking of lucky,” says Kelly, “I think we have one of my particular favorite tweets from this series. This is a tweet from Julia, and it says, ‘Psst, Arthur is secretly a leprechaun, pass it on.’”

The audience laughs and Arthur knows that he’s blushing. 

Kelly asks very seriously, “ _Are_ you secretly a leprechaun, Arthur?” 

“Do you think, if Arthur were a leprechaun, he would actually tell us?” asks Eames. 

“I do live at the end of a rainbow,” says Arthur, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, right?” 

“Lots of regular, ordinary, non-leprechaun people live at the end of rainbows,” Michael assures him. 

“Let me tell you, it is impossible to decorate the end of a rainbow,” says Eames. “I am entirely unnecessary in that space.” 

“Leprechaun interior designers aren’t really a thing,” Arthur says. 

“We learn important things on this show,” says Kelly. “And speaking of important things, another of my favorite things I learned from Twitter is that you are a really good gift-giver, Eames! I mean, are those really gifts that Arthur tweets or is that all just a lie?” 

“No, those are really gifts,” Arthur says, because Eames deserves all the credit for that. “He is amazingly good at giving gifts. I am pretty much the luckiest ever.” 

There’s an aww from the audience and from Kelly and Michael and Eames beams at him. 

Arthur adds, “Part of what makes me a leprechaun, I guess,” and the audience laughs at his joke. 

“So we’ve talked about leprechauns and we’ve talked about the gifts,” Kelly says. “What other Twitter things were we going to bring up? Because Michael and I basically stalk you guys on Twitter.” 

Michael says, “You guys went on a Duck Tour. There was that.”

“That’s right!” exclaims Kelly. “With your _parents_! Could you get any cuter? Just stop it.” 

“They happened to be visiting,” Eames says, “we were just playing tourist.” 

“A duck tour,” Kelly says to the camera, “if you don’t know, is when you go on a tour that’s partly on land and partly in the water. It’s not a tour of ducks. Because that’s confusing.”

“And then you met that fan in the hotel and you gave her life advice to love who she is,” adds Michael. 

“That was so sweet,” Kelly says. 

Arthur knows he’s blushing again. He wishes they’d move off the Twitter topic. 

“But this is my latest favorite thing on Twitter,” says Kelly. “Have you guys seen this? It’s hashtag Eames size debate. Which, I’m glad they were deliberately vague so we can talk about this.” 

Arthur blinks. He’s been on a bit of a social media break, so he has no idea what Kelly is talking about. But he feels like he can guess. “Eames size debate,” he repeats. 

“About my…?” Eames trails off and waggles his eyebrows, which is all Eames ever needs to do, and of course the audience goes crazy for this. 

“Exactly,” says Kelly. “Based on these interviews strung together, have you seen this edit?” 

Arthur hasn’t seen the edit, which turns out to be from the day they shot all of the small remote interviews. Apparently most of those interviews are out now, and someone went through and collected all of Eames’s penis-size references, starting out somewhat reasonable and growing to laughably enormous as the interviews progress. 

There is laughter and scattered applause from the audience once the clip is done. 

Kelly says, “So the hashtag is all about debating which one of those interviews is the most accurate.” 

Eames is laughing. He looks delighted to have provoked this. Of course. “I had no idea this was going on.”

“We really want to trend on Twitter today, so give us the scoop,” Michael says. “Which one?” 

Eames shakes his head, still grinning. 

Arthur holds his hand about eighteen inches apart and says, “You know. Give or take,” and the crowd goes crazy. 

“Darling,” says Eames, laughing again. 

“You brought it up,” Arthur points out. “You made that a relevant question for people to be asking us.”

“One last question about all this,” says Kelly. 

“About my…?” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows. 

“No, not about that,” Kelly says. “We’ll talk more about that during the commercial break.”

“Oh, okay,” agrees Eames, amidst audience laughter.

“No, Alec Hart, your third judge, has not been nearly as engaged with social media as the two of you have been. And, in fact, he has gone completely quiet over the past couple of days. I would imagine that this kind of show is grueling. Is there just some kind of fatigue that creeps in?” 

Interesting that Alec’s basically gone silent over the past couple of days, thinks Arthur. He’s been too busy to worry about Alec’s nonsense, but maybe Alec finally learned his lesson if he’s not on social media being an idiot. Or maybe Mal reported him to the network and they locked down his accounts. 

Either way, Eames answers by just saying, “It definitely does get fatiguing. Even if you’re a person who gets a lot of energy from the kind of interaction, it can wear at you after a bit and you just want to kind of curl up in bed and eat chocolate digestives and watch reality TV, you know?” 

“No,” Kelly deadpans, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I definitely never do that.” 

“I anticipate, once the live finale is over, that Arthur and I will also drop off the grid for a while. And not for any reason other than sometimes you need to turn everything off to recharge.” 

“And then you’re coming back with something even bigger?” asks Kelly. “That’s the rumor.” 

“That is the rumor,” Arthur agrees. “But you have to tune in to the live finale to find out more.” 

“The other rumor,” adds Eames, “is that I’m a viscount.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes because he can’t suppress it anymore. 

Kelly looks impressed. “Wait, really?” 

“Well, you know, possibly,” says Eames. “Could be.” 

“Does that make you a viscountess?” Michael asks Arthur. 

“I’m more likely to be a cat than a viscountess,” Arthur replies drily. 

Eames chokes with delighted laughter next to him.


	182. Chapter 182

Arthur is exhausted, dragging from the lack of quality sleep the night before, the severe dehydration that he’s still trying to recover from, and the amount of extroversion necessary for a good interview. Both of their segments have been easy but that doesn’t mean that Arthur isn’t still just plain exhausted. 

And they have the New York _Times_ next. 

They have never been interviewed by anyone as serious as the New York _Times_ before. Arthur is used to fluffy throwaway interviews where they can kill a lot of time speculating about the size of Eames’s penis. He told Saito that he wasn’t intimidated by the New York _Times_ , that it’s just for some arts piece, it’s not like it’s the front page, but he’s maybe a little bit intimidated by it. And he wishes he felt slightly more quick-witted. He doesn’t want the _Times_ reporter to think he’s an idiot, after all. 

Eames, chuckling madly, thrusts his phone in front of Arthur. It’s open to Twitter, and Arthur reads the tweet. _Viscount. Cat. Guys. HOW MUCH FANFICTION DO EAMES AND ARTHUR READ?_

“The Internet is going _mad_ ,” Eames crows enthusiastically. He replaces his phone back in his pocket and says, “You, darling, are so bloody hilarious. Have I told you that lately? You’re the funniest person I’ve ever met.” Eames kisses the base of his neck, nosing his way past Arthur’s collar to do it. 

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Arthur says primly. 

Eames grins at him. “Yes, you were. Because you are _hilarious_. It’s one of your little secrets, you know. I know all of your little secrets.” 

“What little secrets?” asks Arthur innocently. 

“That you’re sweet and kind and have a wicked sense of humor. Those are your little secrets.” 

“Shh,” Arthur tells him. “Not so loud. I have a reputation to uphold.” 

Arthur expects Eames to laugh but Eames just looks at him with a little smile playing around his lips. 

So Arthur says, “What?” 

“I was just thinking that promo without you is fine, but not nearly as much fun as promo _with_ you. And how that’s basically how I feel about life in general. It’s fine without you, but I have a lot more fun now with you.” 

Arthur knows he blushes at that, so he tries to cover it by saying, “Which is ridiculous, because you’re the fun one.” 

Eames does laugh this time. “Again, that’s just one of your little secrets: You’re incredibly fun.” 

“I’m very prim and proper and serious,” says Arthur. “Look at my serious tie.” 

“It’s magenta, darling. No serious person wears a magenta tie.” 

It’s a good point, and it’s true that Arthur does try to keep his wardrobe reasonably playful, because he really _isn’t_ as prim and proper and serious as you might otherwise think if you’re not paying attention. At least, that’s Arthur’s view. 

He’s saved from any response about his magenta tie by their parents arriving backstage. 

“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked them. 

“It was lovely,” says Maggie. 

“A cat?” says his mother, lifting her eyebrows at him. 

“It’s ridiculous,” says Arthur. “A stupid joke.”

“He’s sleek like a cat,” says Eames. “And sometimes I can get him to purr.” 

“Look at the time,” says Arthur. “Eames and I have to run off to one more interview. I thought you guys might—”

“Good morning,” says Saito from behind Arthur, startling him. 

He startles Eames as well, who says, “Christ, you’re stealthy.” Then Eames narrows his eyes. “Stealthy like a dragon.”

“Not a common simile,” remarks Saito, “and yet somehow not surprising, coming from you.” 

“Thank you,” says Eames, like that’s some kind of compliment. 

Arthur says, confused, “Did you tell us you were dropping by?” 

Saito ignores him in that expert way he has, saying instead to both of them, “Well done. The interviews this morning were both splendid. Don’t be worried about the _Times_ reporter. Arthur, you’re clever and thoughtful and I think you’ll enjoy this. And, Eames, you are, as you know, quite charming. Frequently inexplicably so.” 

“We’re not worried,” Arthur denies, even though he kind of is. 

Saito sees through him like he’s a well-washed window, apparently, because Saito levels a look on him and then says gravely, “You are very good at all of this, as you are well aware by now. Remind yourself of that.” 

“Right,” says Eames. 

Saito’s eyes cut over to Eames. “Not you, Mr. Eames. You hardly need to be told to remind yourself of your good points.” 

“True,” agrees Eames lightly. “Nor do I ever need to be told to remind Arthur of his.” 

Saito actually smiles at him. Then he says, “Off with both of you. Mr. Eames, please attempt to keep the banter something less than scandalous.” 

“Where’s the fun in that?” asks Eames, jovially. 

“I’ll keep it in line,” Arthur says, because he’s used to that by now, and actually so is Eames. Eames teases about it, but he knows his media guidelines, and he might push the envelope but he almost never steps over the line. 

“I have every confidence,” says Saito. Then he turns to their parents and says, “Shall we be off?” 

“Off?” echoes Arthur, staring at his mother’s blush. 

“We forgot to mention,” says Maggie. “Mr. Saito texted us, he says he can get us a special tour of the top of Rockefeller Center. The view of the city is supposed to be divine.” 

“It is without equal,” says Saito. 

Arthur blinks and can’t think of anything to say but, “Oh.” 

“Bye, boys,” Maggie says, fluttering kisses over both of their cheeks. “Have fun.” 

“I can’t wait to hear how it all goes,” says Albert cheerfully. 

“Bye,” his mother says, and kisses Eames’s cheek but gives him a much more serious kiss and a hug to go with it. “Don’t worry,” she whispers into his ear. 

He doesn’t even know if she’s talking about this whole weird thing with Saito or about the _Times_ interview. So he just says, “Okay,” because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

And then he stands with Eames and watches Saito and their parents leave the building, already chattering to each other happily. 

“Of course Saito has special access to Rockefeller Center,” remarks Eames. “He probably bought the building just to make wooing your mother easier.” 

Arthur has genuinely no idea what to think of this Saito situation. Arthur needs a lot more processing time on all of this. 

So Arthur does what he always does when he needs processing time. He turns to Eames and snuggles against him. 

Eames says, “Hi,” and kisses his temple and just holds him for a lovely period of blessed silence. 

Then Arthur, feeling like he’s recalibrated himself, straightens and says, “Okay. Let’s go do some wooing of this _Times_ reporter.” 

“That makes it sound like you’re going to ask the reporter for a threesome,” says Eames. 

“To clarify,” says Arthur, “I just want you to know that I’m not going to ask the reporter for a threesome.” 

“You just want to knock his socks off,” says Eames. 

Arthur considers. “Actually, that also kind of sounds filthy.” 

“Yeah,” Eames says, “but that’s just the way my voice is. I can make anything sound filthy. It’s one of my many talents.” 

Arthur can’t deny that. “Let’s go knock his socks off, then,” he says. 

Eames makes a ridiculous little growling sound and says, “Ooh, darling, tell me more.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes, but there’s a dimple firmly in place when Eames darts over to press a kiss into it.


	183. Chapter 183

_The hottest commodity in the entertainment world right now is a double act. But they don’t sing or dance or tell you jokes or do magic tricks, although they are quite funny and some might say that they can work magic. If you ask them, though, they’d describe themselves as a real estate agent and an interior decorator._

_They’re also the breakout television stars of the year so far._

_Arthur and Eames are not a new pairing. They’ve been delighting viewers of_ Love It or List It _for several seasons now, earning themselves a cult following. The show pits real estate agent Arthur against interior decorator Eames, as they fight to convince a set of homeowners to stay in their home or move to a new one. It’s a simple premise and a formulaic show routinely saved by the duo’s charisma. And their on-screen chemistry is no pretense: The two met when they started doing the show, fell in love as the show progressed, and now share a lavishly designed home that has won them features in national magazines. Eames designed the home; Arthur found it for them to buy._

_Arthur and Eames might have gone on happily helming_ Love It or List It _and heading up a stealth fandom indefinitely, except for the fact that_ Next Big Thing _came along. A reality competition show that follows a familiar format, thirteen contestants confronted a series of design challenges in a quest to be declared the Next Big Thing. Arthur and Eames serve as two of the show’s three celebrity judges (with Alec Hart of_ Hart in Your Home _as the third), and they quickly introduced a whole new audience to their special brand of fizzy, flirtatious banter._ Next Big Thing _has been an unexpected runaway hit, due in no small part to Arthur and Eames, who cope with off-the-wall contestants while serving as kind and informative mentors and also dealing with Hart’s frequent crazy asides. All with the sort of aplomb that you’d expect to find in a Cary Grant film._

_So just how good are they at their jobs? It depends on which job you’re talking about._

_“I think we both consider ‘television star’ to be a secondary occupation,” says Eames. “At heart, I’m just an ordinary interior decorator.”_

_Arthur is quick to correct him. “No, Eames is _brilliant_. I think it’s easy to forget how brilliant he is because he doesn’t go around bragging about it all the time but Eames is literally the best designer I have ever seen. And I’ve worked with a lot of designers now. Eames puts a room together and it’s not just that it’s beautiful, it’s that it’s all of the most beautiful pieces of _you_. Like, he manages to find a way to make every room reveal the beauty of the person who has to live in that room.”_

_It’s true that Arthur’s assessment, while seemingly adoringly lavish, is far more accurate than Eames’s modesty. Eames is highly respected and wildly successful when it comes to designs, so in-demand that he admits to being incredibly selective when it comes to clients._

_“We’re busy,” Eames says. “I love designing but I don’t want to have a client ring me up and to think, ‘God, do I have to deal with this now?’ I don’t want to get burnt out. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.”_

_Eames’s clients do seem to adore him. Scoring an Eames-designed room is a status symbol beyond compare. But Eames seems nonplussed by all the fuss. He says, “I design all rooms for all people the same way. I want people to walk into my rooms and I want them to be surprised and delighted in this unexpected way but I also want them to feel like that’s what they wanted all their lives and they just never knew. It’s like falling in love, right? You don’t fall in love in a predictable way, it always catches you by surprise, that’s part of the charm of it. I want people to fall in love with my rooms.”_

_It’s no surprise that these two so frequently intertwine the concept of love with their houses. After all, it was design that brought them together. Eames describes the experience of falling in love with Arthur in the same way he describes his rooms: “surprising, delightful, unexpected, unpredictable. But also like he was what I’d been looking for all along, I just never knew.” Arthur describes falling in love with Eames as “inevitable,” adding, “It was delightful, of course, because Eames is delightful, and unpredictable, definitely. But to me the biggest surprise, the most unexpected thing, was that I didn’t have to fight through droves of people to get to him, that everyone who meets him, or sees him design a room, doesn’t fall in love with him.”_

_And they have been, up to this point in the interview, charming and polite and thoughtful in their responses. But at this point they embark on something well-known to their fans: They banter._

_“It was the same for me,” says Eames. “He’s hilarious and clever and he wears a suit like that. How was he still around for me to have a chance? I have no idea.”_

_“I just really like double entendres,” Arthur replies._

_Eames rejoins with, “And tattoos.”_

_“British accents,” adds Arthur._

_“Designers,” finishes Eames._

_Yes, they really do banter in private the way they do on the show._

_Arthur says, “It’s definitely not something we turn on for the cameras. This is just how we talk.”_

_“I think we like to make each other laugh,” says Eames. “It’s fun to have fun conversations. We have the same conversations in front of the camera as we do when the cameras aren’t around. It really is very genuine.”_

_And unscripted?_

_“Totally,” confirms Eames._

_“We have scripts,” says Arthur. “I don’t think Eames has ever even read them.”_

_“And I’m certainly not going to start now,” says Eames. “It’s worked out so far, hasn’t it?”_

_It is, one realizes quickly, a very Eames thing to say. Eames grew up in a small village in England, the only child of the couple who owned the local pub. He quickly discovered he was “rubbish at cooking” and sought more creative outlets. “I was an art terror,” he says. “If there is such a thing.” Restless and seeking a bigger pond, Eames moved first to London and then to Boston, “on a lark. I wanted some new air, thought it would be inspiring. And it worked out for the best.”_

_This, to Eames, is his entire life story in a nutshell: He thought something looked like fun, so he tried it just to see. Arthur says that he “wouldn’t describe [himself] as exactly opposite, just much more cautious.” A self-professed “planner,” Arthur was raised in upstate New York by a single mother and went into real estate right out of college. “I knew how everything was going to go,” he says. “I was going to be a very successful real estate agent and I’d have a house in some little town somewhere upstate and that would be fine with me.” Whereas Eames jumped into the_ Love It or List It _boat based on his looked-like-fun strategy, Arthur’s mother entered him in the applicant pool without his knowledge._

_“When I got the call to come and audition, I literally had to say, ‘A show? A television show? What are you talking about?’” says Arthur. He decided to go because he didn’t want to disappoint his mother, and when he was hired he figured he’d give it a season and then go back to his regular life. “But then,” says Arthur, “it turned out I was apparently good at being on television.”_

_“Good at being on television” is an understatement for both of them: The medium loves them. Their personalities appear to translate well on camera. And it does seem, meeting them in person, as if it’s all genuine. They are relaxed and comfortable with each other, casually fond and affectionate in a way familiar from their on-screen interactions. In their well-known television guises, Eames is slightly over-the-top and endlessly flirtatious, tongue constantly planted in cheek, whereas Arthur fills the more serious role, reacting to Eames with eyerolls and heavy sighs of resignation. And in person, without editing, these roles seem to hold true, although they both agree their personalities are more nuanced than that._

_“Eames has a very serious side,” Arthur says. “When it’s important—when it counts—he’s serious. Incredibly dependable and trustworthy. He can actually turn on a dime in a way that people always underestimate. If you cross one of his lines, all of the fun and games disappear.”_

_And Arthur, says Eames, is “hysterically funny. And he can be silly. He’ll do the most ridiculous things to make me laugh.”_

_“We’re different enough,” Arthur adds, “that the contrast works for the show, but we’ve got a lot of overlapping similarities, too.”_

_“We’d have to,” Eames finishes for him. “Otherwise we’d spend all our time fighting, because one of the things we have in common is we’re both stubborn and strong-willed.” Eames pauses, and then, with consummate comic timing, adds, “And obviously we’re both very attractive with very brilliant senses of style.”_

_Arthur, who, true to form, is impeccably turned out in a sharp, well-tailored suit, lifts a dubious eyebrow in a gesture familiar to anyone who watches their shows, but does admit that he has “a weakness for fashion. Eames has a weakness for raw cake batter and terrible movies and television shows, but my weakness is for fashion.”_

_Arthur’s sartorial choices have gained him a passionate following of fellow fashionistas who dissect everything he wears. His oft-referenced tailor, Giacomo, is a rightful fan favorite. “In the beginning of the show,” Arthur says, “they kind of stuck me in any old suit, and finally I started pushing back on that. I’m a real estate agent and I know how important image is in selling something and I wanted really beautiful suits. Luckily by that time I’d found Giacomo, and Giacomo is so good at finding just the right risk-taking pieces. People were talking so much about my off-screen fashion that it was easy to convince the network to let me handle my own clothing choices.”_

_Neither Eames nor Arthur chose their careers thinking they would be famous, and they agree that fame is, as Eames puts it, “weird.” He explains, “I don’t want it to sound like we’re not grateful for all the fans, because we absolutely are, and we have utterly fantastic fans. But being famous is just weird. It’s weird to have strangers be so excited to see you, and to feel like they know you, based on this really limited piece of you.”_

_Which, again, isn’t to say that they’re faking it: “I think we’re very authentic,” Arthur says, “both on the shows and on social media. But who you are at cocktail parties is different than who you are when you’re at home on your couch in your pajamas. And our lives—everyone’s lives, really—are all about struggling to maintain this balance between the public and the private, between who you are around the different varieties of other people and who you are in your own home. We’re celebrities and we’re also really boring normal people, and we remind ourselves to be both, to find the joy and wonder in both sides of ourselves.”_

_And if fame was weird for them before, the success of_ Next Big Thing _has kicked it up a notch. And in an extremely personal way: Part of the drama this season revolved around the fact that Eames and Hart used to date. At times, tension between Eames’s current boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend boiled over into some dramatic confrontations that the Internet gobbled up._

_Arthur is quick to downplay the whole thing. “It isn’t like some kind of rivalry thing. I know the show’s been edited to make it look like Alec and I have this giant rivalry, but really, our disagreements are more design-based, more aesthetic, than anything to do with his prior relationship with Eames. It happened before Eames and I were a couple. It’s like you end up with your college sweetheart and then you meet his high school boyfriend during the high school reunion, or whatever. There’s this kind of natural curiosity—‘So that’s another person you spent time with, who wasn’t me?’—but it isn’t this sort of all-consuming motivation the way I think it gets painted to be.”_

_Eames says, “My relationship with Alec was very brief and very long ago. Much has been made of it, but it’s completely irrelevant. We all have dating histories. Mine just happens to be a little more public but we can be adults about it.”_

_It’s true that lots of couples have to deal with interpersonal dramas, but famous couples have to do it in the public eye, and Arthur and Eames have had to do it literally on-camera._

_Arthur says, “That didn’t really complicate it, though. Really, the most threatening thing to our relationship to come out of the_ Next Big Thing _situation wasn’t Alec, it was how successful the show was. Fame is scary, really. You can lose sight really easily of who you were when this whole thing started. You need someone there with you to ground you. I think I spent a lot of time being really scared of embracing our success, and I have to credit Eames with convincing me that we could do this together and it wouldn’t be so scary.”_

_“I think fame can be lonely and isolating,” Eames says. “It helps a lot if you’re lucky enough to find someone who makes sure you never feel alone.”_

_And does it ever get to be too much, all of their togetherness?_

_“We actually have very separate careers,” Arthur says. “There are times when our lives are just like any other couple’s, and we go off to work and see each other again over dinner. It’s only on certain filming days that we spend a ton of time together.”_

_“Which isn’t to say that it isn’t lovely to spend lots of time together,” Eames adds. “But I think we both feel it’s important to keep some separation. A relationship isn’t about totally subsuming yourself into the other person’s life, it’s just about remembering who you’ve always been and recognizing that maybe having that other person around makes you a bit better. Or a lot better, in the case of Arthur with me.”_

_“We’re a really good team,” Arthur agrees. “Sometimes people will say that everything’s better with two, and I’ve always hated that idea. It’s simply not true. If you find the right other person, then lots of things will be better for you. But if you’ve got the wrong person with you, you’d be much better on your own, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing. In fact, you can be in a relationship and feel lonelier than if you were all alone. Luckily, that’s not our relationship. Luckily, we found the right person. We don’t do everything together but we do lots of things together simply because we enjoy each other. I can’t imagine having as much fun with anyone as I have with Eames. He just makes everything brighter.”_

_“The feeling is very mutual,” says Eames._

_You could be forgiven for frankly thinking that Eames and Arthur are sitting on top of the world at the moment. Where do you go from there? The couple plays coy when it comes to their future plans._

_Eames says, “Banter. Whatever we do next, it will no doubt involve lots and lots of banter.”_

_Arthur says, “I prefer badinage. But yes. Agreed.”_


	184. Chapter 184

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, I love that I messed up little details in that Times article! Oops! Sorry! Messy! Those Times fact-checkers! They were, like me, agonizing over how many long, articulate speeches the boys could have without sounding too ridiculous...
> 
> The photos discussed in this chapter are based on the photos here: http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/112193672617/involuntaryorange-earlgreytea68#notes

They stand in Penn Station, waiting for the train, Arthur sipping terrible coffee in an effort to wake himself up a little bit, and Arthur wonders awkwardly if he’s supposed to ask how his mother’s date with Saito went. What’s the protocol for that? He has no clue. Their parents were already at Penn Station when he and Eames got there, Saito having already dropped them off, and they herded all of their luggage over to the waiting area and straightened out their ticket situation and now Eames is taking some kind of work call off to the side—which: hadn’t they agreed to call off work this week?—and Arthur is trying not to be socially awkward about this whole situation. 

His mother says, “How was the _Times_ reporter?”

Which is a really truly excellent _neutral_ topic of conversation, Arthur thinks, and seizes upon it gratefully. “Really nice,” he says honestly. “I think the interview went really well.” 

“And I bet you didn’t even have to speculate about the size of Eamesie’s penis,” remarks Maggie frankly. 

Arthur can’t even be bothered to blush about that, because it’s just so _true_. “It’s always a refreshing time in my life,” remarks Arthur drily, “when I can avoid questions about that, yes.” 

Albert says, “If everyone’s so obsessed with that, they should just look online. Eamesie has those photos floating around, doesn’t he, Maggie?” 

Albert says this so casually. Arthur stares at him and says, “What photos?” 

Albert waves his hand about, as if the revelation of Eames having naked photos floating around the Internet is nothing interesting. “He took some photos for the portfolio of one of his artist friends at one point. Wasn’t he naked in those?”

“Yes, but I don’t think you could see anything,” says Maggie, clearly trying very hard to remember the state of nudity evident in Eames’s photos. “I think there were always obstacles in the way.” 

Arthur’s mother looks startled, as if she is trying to determine if Arthur has photos like that on the Internet somewhere. 

Arthur is too speechless at this revelation to even reassure her. 

Eames wanders back over, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “That was Paul. Virgin Islands job nonsense. What have I missed over here?” 

“Are there naked photos of you on the Internet?” Arthur asks without preamble. “I mean, there can’t possibly be, because the fandom would have turned them up by now.” 

“Ah,” says Eames, looking only mildly uncomfortable with this topic of conversation. “I don’t think they’re online. Betsy must have kept them for herself.” 

“So somewhere in England Betsy is hanging on to naked photos of you for her own edification?” clarifies Arthur. 

“Well, when you put it that way, darling, it sounds downright filthy. They were artistic photos. They were for her portfolio.” 

“He wasn’t even naked in them, Arthur, really,” Maggie promises him solemnly. 

“Well. That’s not quite true, Mum,” Eames says regretfully. “I _was_ naked. Didn’t have a stitch on.” 

“Yes, but you couldn’t see that in the photos because there were obstacles in the way,” Maggie reminds him. 

“Right. Exactly. They were very tasteful photos, darling, I assure you. So, moving on from my checkered past, how was your date?” He smiles at Arthur’s mother sunnily. 

Arthur’s mother blushes and says, “It wasn’t a date.”

“How was the view?” asks Eames. 

“Oh, it was _beautiful_ ,” says Arthur’s mother. 

“Enough about Saito, tell me about the view of _New York_ ,” says Eames, and winks. 

“Stop, Eamesie, you’re teasing terribly,” Maggie scolds him. 

“If you don’t behave yourself, we’ll contact Betsy when we get home and have her post all the photos to the Internet,” Albert notes mildly. 

The PA system announces the boarding for their train, and so further conversation is halted as they gather their belongings. But Arthur says to Eames, as they’re standing on the escalator descending with their luggage, “There are naked picture of you out there and I’ve never gotten to see them? I don’t approve.” 

“Darling, you can see the real thing whenever you like,” Eames says, and waggles his eyebrows at him.


	185. Chapter 185

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an early posting tonight!
> 
> Tomorrow is EUROVISION DAY, so there probably won't be a posting. You should all find a livestream (apparently they're using YouTube?) and you should watch the wonder for yourself. And join in on my various Twitter accounts!

Arthur is dozing against Eames’s shoulder on the train ride home. He’s not supposed to be. He’s supposed to be going over the list of Twitter questions they’re going to be asked at the live finale. But he’s been tired all day and the rhythm of the train is lulling and Eames’s shoulder is an excellent pillow and he can’t help that he decides just closing his eyes for a little while is a good idea. 

Around him there are train sounds, Eames’s steady breaths, their parents in the row behind them having a conversation inexplicably about flamingos. At least they’re not talking about Saito. Arthur will take what he can on that front. 

Then Eames says, “Ah.” 

Arthur grunts something vaguely querying in response. 

Eames says, “Nothing.” 

Eames only ever says _nothing_ when there is something. When there is _actually_ nothing, Eames makes a huge deal. Eames is an expert at mountaining molehills, and an equal expert at molehilling mountains. Arthur has, by this time, learned to speak Eames opposite speak. 

So Arthur opens his eyes and says flatly, “What nothing?” 

Eames is trying to pretend that he wasn’t just looking at his phone. “Nothing. I thought you were sleeping. Go back to sleep.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” denies Arthur. 

“I see that now,” says Eames. “But you should take a little nap. We had a late night last night and a busy day.” Eames nudges Arthur’s head down to his shoulder and starts humming something. 

“Is that supposed to be a lullaby?” asks Arthur. 

“Do you find it soothing?” asks Eames. 

“Give me that phone,” sighs Arthur, and snatches it away from Eames. Eames has backed out of his browser but when Arthur opens it it’s still open to a screaming headline: _EAMES AND ARTHUR DO NEW YORK. And we do mean ‘do.’_

Arthur sits up from Eames’s shoulder and scrolls down, reading. 

_Arthur and Eames, in town to promote their runaway hit Next Big Thing, treated some New York City club-goers to an unexpected surprise when they showed up to dance. Witnesses said they were “clearly trying to go unrecognized” and “were basically in disguise.” Evidently, they felt confident enough that they were incognito to engage in some enthusiastic dancefloor behavior, as the video below makes clear. You might disagree but personally we’re disappointed we didn’t get to see this in person! Thank you, intrepid videographer, for ensuring the rest of us can have this in our fantasy banks._

“Fuck,” breathes Arthur, but he’s not the least bit surprised by this. It’s more of a resigned sort of fuck than an angry one.

“Don’t watch the video,” says Eames. 

“Do you think there’s even the smallest chance I’m not going to watch the video?” asks Arthur drily, lifting an eyebrow. 

“No,” says Eames. “But at least wait until we get home.” 

“It’s that embarrassing?” asks Arthur. 

“No, it’s that hot,” Eames replies. 

Arthur gives him a look and presses play on the video. 

It’s a truly awful video, and honestly they could easily deny that it’s them. The footage is so grainy and distant that it could plausibly be two people with similar body types. Except that Arthur knows it’s them because he knows exactly what they did last night. 

And he’s got to admit that Eames is right and it’s kind of hot. There’s something organic about the sight of him and Eames moving together, something that makes Arthur think, as he sometimes does, of how perfect a team they are. 

“Are you horrified?” Eames asks. 

“No,” Arthur answers truthfully. “It actually is kind of hot.” 

“Oh, good, you agree?” says Eames, beaming. “So would now be a good time to mention that I think we should make a sex tape?”

Arthur snorts. “Oh, yeah. Because that’s not begging to be leaked to the Internet. Speaking of, what do they have to say about this?” Because he knows Eames looked. 

Eames says, “It’s rather all over the place. Some people insist it’s not us and generally point to the fact that you’re clearly wearing jeans in the video. Some people think, as the article indicates, that this is the best thing ever committed to film. Some people think we should have got a room. Some people are fairly convinced that this is the sex club.” 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” sighs Arthur. 

“Darling, I’d just like to point out that behavior like this—” Eames taps his finger against his phone—“is why people think you’ve got a sex club.” 

Arthur shakes his head but he’s got to admit the possibility that Eames has a point. Probably sex club managers are more likely to engage in public quasi-sex than non-sex-club-managers. If someone’s measuring such things. “You know what?” he says. “You’re right.”

Eames blinks. “About what?” 

“My feral sexuality. Can’t be denied. Why even try?” 

Eames looks confused by his concession, but says, “Yes. Exactly.”

“I should probably blow you in the train’s bathroom, keep up my reputation.” 

“If you feel that’s necessary, I am willing to comply,” says Eames seriously. 

Arthur laughs and kisses him and hands him back his phone and then settles back against him. 

“I thought you’d be more upset about this,” Eames remarks. 

“Upset that I got caught dancing with my boyfriend? I’d rather every moment of our lives wasn’t broadcast on the Internet, but it’s not like I got caught cheating on you or something. It’s bewildering to me that us going to a club should be news, considering no one should be surprised that we go out together sometimes. I’m not upset. We just need to keep our parents from seeing it.” 

“I don’t think they’d _want_ to see it,” Eames says. 

“Good point,” says Arthur, and snuggles closer and closes his eyes again. “You know, I think it’s really unfair that I’m the one everybody thinks has a sex club when you’re the one with the actual naked pictures out there.” 

“Oh, I suppose there are no naked pictures of you floating around?” asks Eames. 

“There aren’t,” says Arthur. “There are many terrible pictures of me out there but I am fully clothed in all of them.” 

“Well, that’s just a crime,” says Eames after a second. “If you won’t do a sex tape with me, at least let me take some naked photos of you.” 

“Why?”’

“So I can have them in my phone to gaze at longingly when you’re not with me.” 

Arthur snorts. “Change the topic of conversation before our parents stop talking about flamingos and overhear us.”

“Go back to sleep,” says Eames. 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Arthur reminds him. But does go back to dozing on his shoulder.


	186. Chapter 186

Arthur wakes up much earlier than he intends on the morning of the live finale. Not because he’s nervous but because he’s actually _excited_. He wants to do this. He wants to see who wins. And then he wants to close the door on this part of his life and step into the future. At this time in two days they’ll be on a plane to paradise and Arthur isn’t going to get dressed for days and days and days. 

Next to him Eames snorts in quiet rumbles and Arthur smiles up at the ceiling and just listens for a little while. And thinks of the rest of their lives. It’s a nice thing to think about. 

Eventually Arthur rolls onto his side to watch Eames sleep and contemplates waking him up. Eames isn’t a morning person but Arthur is well aware that there are ways to wake Eames up that Eames would enthusiastically support. But Eames snuffles a little into his pillow, a lock of hair falling over his eyes, and looks so adorable and comfortable that Arthur can’t bring himself to disturb him at the moment. 

But Arthur’s also getting restless lying awake in their bed. The rest of the house seems quiet still, and he doesn’t really want to go sit in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and the newspaper like it’s just any old day. 

So instead he rolls out of bed and goes into his closet and opens up his suitcase and starts packing for their vacation. He throws in the peacock Speedo to amuse Eames, and the new blazer he bought in New York and the rest of an outfit to go with it, and then from there he muses at his wardrobe and selects all of his most casual clothing. He literally finds himself digging to the back of his shelves to get t-shirts from college that he hasn’t worn in years because he’s in that kind of mood. He remembers how he felt when he went off to college, like it was all just the beginning of something, like the world was his oyster, and he feels that way again, and there’s a nice symmetry to that, he thinks. Maybe that’s what he’ll say when Eames proposes. _You make me feel like I’m young again, just off to college, like the whole world is in front of me and could be mine_. He’s been trying to come up with the perfect response to Eames’s proposal. _Yes_ seems so anticlimactic after all the trouble he’s putting Eames through. 

“What are you doing?” Eames asks, yawning, appearing in the closet doorway. 

Arthur looks up from where he’s seated on the floor happily rolling things into his suitcase. “Packing for our trip. Did I wake you? I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“You were whistling,” Eames says. 

This gives Arthur pause. “Was I? Sorry. I didn’t even realize it.” 

“Unconscious whistling,” Eames remarks. “That’s a good sign.” 

“Unconscious?” says Arthur. “Or subconscious? Which is correct?” 

“Are you practicing for some sort of quiz show, darling?” 

“Trivia,” Arthur says, getting himself to his feet so he can walk over to him. Eames looks sleep-rumpled and delicious and Arthur wants to tuck up against him. “We could rock trivia, you and I. You know pop culture. I know everything else.” 

“Everything else in the universe,” Eames agrees, and pulls him in but doesn’t kiss him, presumably because he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet. He just puts his chin on Arthur’s shoulder. “Happy Live Finale Day,” he says. 

“You, too.” Arthur kisses the side of his neck. “Let’s go have sex in your spaceship shower.” 

“That makes the early hour worth it.” 

“Uh-huh,” says Arthur, and tugs him into the bathroom.


	187. Chapter 187

Eames drops back into bed and wraps himself up in the covers. 

Arthur stares at him. “Are you really going back to bed?” 

“Definitely,” Eames says, already burrowing his head under his pillow. 

“The sex didn’t wake you up?” asks Arthur. 

“Do you normally find sex wakes me up?” mumbles Eames. He already sounds half-asleep. 

“You just got out of the shower,” Arthur point out. “You should be invigorated.” 

“This is what I look like invigorated,” says Eames, and pulls the covers up over his head. 

Arthur shakes his head and leaves him to it. The sex killed time, after all, so when he goes downstairs he finds their parents awake, as usual. His mother pours him coffee and Albert asks what kind of eggs he wants and Arthur thinks that he’s really going to miss all of this when they leave. It’ll be nice to have the house to themselves again but it’s also been nice having family around. Maybe they should convert some of the public space into in-law apartments, Arthur thinks. Then everyone could come visit more often. 

It would probably drive him a little crazy, but it would be the good kind of crazy, like when Eames decides to just take a floor out to see what’s underneath it. And Eames would love to design them. 

Arthur tucks the idea away to bring up to Eames later and says, “We have to go to Giacomo’s to pick up our outfits for tonight.” 

“I know!” exclaims Maggie. “I was so excited, I could barely sleep.” 

“Giacomo didn’t have much time,” Arthur warns her, “so I don’t want to get your hopes too up in case it’s not exactly what you were envisioning.” 

“Yes, Laura already suggested I should keep my expectations reasonable,” Maggie agrees, “but I can’t help it! You do this all the time so it’s probably unimpressive to you, but I have never done anything this level of luxurious before. I’m not envisioning anything specific, but I admit I am envisioning something _amazing_.” 

Arthur hopes Giacomo had enough time—and enough recruited labor—to pull off Maggie’s definition of “something amazing.” 

When they get to Giacomo’s store, he asks them how New York was and if they’re looking forward to the show tonight. Maggie and Albert are their usual enthusiastic Eamesian selves in response. Arthur’s mother is quieter, although she just is as a general rule, so Arthur doesn’t think it’s anything to be concerned about. 

He wishes he was a better son who would be able to smoothly ask her how she feels about Saito and assure her that he’s fine with it but he truthfully needs more processing time and so he hasn’t brought it up at all. And neither has she, which was predictable given that she knows Arthur well and surely knows that he needs some processing time for this. 

He edges over to his mother while Maggie and Albert are talking about the food they had in New York and says softly, “You okay?” 

She looks at him and smiles genuinely and nods. “I’m excited like Maggie,” she admits. “And trying not to be. I know it was a lot to ask of him and he didn’t have a ton of time, but it _is_ just so exciting, isn’t it, Arthur?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, smiling fondly, because he’s grown used to the luxury of Giacomo but he still gets a thrill when he pulls on a newly-fitted gorgeous suit. He thinks he always will. 

Finally Giacomo retrieves their clothing, and it’s clear Giacomo didn’t actually tailor anything in his store. He must have enlisted someone who sells women’s clothing to find pieces that were close to what Maggie and Arthur’s mother had chosen. But there’s still a dramatic masculine feel to their suits, so they stand out the way they wanted to. 

Giacomo says apologetically, “I didn’t have enough time to make them exactly as requested, so I took some liberties. I hope they’re still acceptable.” 

They are not just acceptable, they’re _gorgeous_. There’s something about the paradox of them—not what anyone expected, and yet perfect—that reminds Arthur of Eames’s designs. And that would be enough to make Arthur love them even without the fact that when Arthur’s mother puts hers on—with its playful accents of lilac and its snug waistcoat—her eyes actually well up. 

“Sorry,” she says, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s so stupid. But it’s just so beautiful, Giacomo.” 

“Beautifully tailored clothing,” Giacomo says to her, “for a beautiful lady.” 

Arthur wonders if everyone he knows is going to flirt with his mother now. 

And Arthur decides that he’s probably okay with it, as long as they all recognize how awesome she is. 

“Look at this, eh?” says Albert, twirling in his suit. “Not so bad. Wait until old Rupert sees this back in the village. Giacomo, you have outdone yourself.” 

“Arthur, go try yours on,” Maggie urges him. 

The suit fit him pretty nicely before and it only needed a few tweaks, but he still gets the same sartorial thrill when he pulls it on. He comes out of the changing room and stands in front of the mirror and just admires it. It’s a nice suit. No, scratch that, it’s a _fucking amazing_ suit. 

Maggie says, “You look like a king.” 

“Or a viscountess.” Arthur smiles at his reflection in the mirror. “Which is good enough.”


	188. Chapter 188

Arthur gathers his suit into its suit bag and reminds his mother for the fifth time what time the limo will come to pick them up and that she is to call him immediately if anyone causes them any difficulty in getting into the filming. 

“Arthur,” says his mother, smiling at him, “you have told me this several times and you have even written it here on your whiteboard for us.” His mother indicates the whiteboard. 

Eames says, “Still no satisfactory replacement for the whiteboard. Must talk to Scott about that tonight.” 

Arthur thinks that talking to Scott about the whiteboard is very low on the things he needs to remember for tonight. He says to his mother, “I’m just making sure.” 

“We’ll be fine,” his mother assures him. 

“We can’t wait,” adds Maggie.

“You two have fun,” concludes Albert. 

“It’s a rehearsal,” says Arthur. “It’s work.” 

“We’re going to have a blast,” says Eames, and then tugs Arthur out the door to the waiting car. 

Arthur gets them and their clothing settled. They’re going to have to get ready for the filming right after the rehearsal. Arthur supposes they could have gone to the rehearsal dressed in filming clothes but he doesn’t want to don the metallic knit suit until it’s show time. Arthur can’t really tell if this is practicality or vague superstition on his part.

“I can’t wait to see all of our parents in their posh new outfits,” remarks Eames. 

“Giacomo did such a fantastic job,” Arthur tells him. “They all look gorgeous.” 

“Probably the paparazzi will just bother them and leave us alone.” 

Arthur just quirks a sarcastic eyebrow at that and scrolls on his phone to the e-mail from Mal, glancing over the selected Twitter questions again and then reading again Mal’s note that the finale will be moderated by Meredith Tanner, another network personality. Arthur doesn’t know her; Eames says he met her once or twice but can’t remember her. 

Which is why it’s noteworthy that Meredith Tanner walks up to them dressed in a toga. That would have been noteworthy under any circumstance but it’s especially noteworthy that Eames couldn’t remember someone who walks around wearing togas. 

She says, “I’m Meredith, and do _not_ mind the toga. This fucking network is always making me do fucking crazy things. How do you get out of it?” 

“We say no,” Arthur says honestly. 

Meredith laughs. “I’ll have to try that someday. So. Eames and Arthur. Arthur and Eames.” 

Arthur after a second says, “That’s us,” in case Meredith is genuinely confused. 

Meredith laughs again. “Yes. Exactly. Eames and Arthur. Arthur and Eames.” 

Arthur doesn’t know what to make of this. He wants to assure her again that yes, that’s exactly who they are. 

Mal saves him by coming up to them. “Oh, good, you’ve met,” she says. “This is all going to be very straightforward. You’ll go on the stage and you’ll wave to the crowd a little bit and you’ll watch the episode we’ve already filmed. Then we’ll watch a segment on the final three working on their desks. Then you’ll live-judge the desks on television. Then, while the Internet is voting, you’ll take questions.” 

“Based on the list you sent us,” Arthur clarifies. 

“Mostly,” says Mal vaguely. 

“Mal,” sighs Arthur. 

“Arthur, my lovely,” Mal says to him. “This has been a magnificent experience for all of us. Would I ruin it now?” 

“Yes,” says Eames. “Yes, you would definitely bloody ruin it.” 

“‘Magnificent experience’?” Arthur echoes blankly. “Have we been working on the same show?” 

“I expect tonight’s episode to be simple and perfect,” says Mal, as if Arthur and Eames never spoke. “You two are such professionals. You’ll carry this off beautifully for me, I know you will. I shall miss you so much at MTV. _Adieu_.” Mal air-kisses both of their cheeks, then scurries off. 

“I cannot decide which order I want to use to introduce you,” says Meredith. “Eames and Arthur. Arthur and Eames. Do you have a preference?” 

At least that explains a little why Meredith kept repeating their names. “No preference,” Arthur says. 

“Really?” says Meredith. “Because Alec Hart was _very particular_ about his introduction.” 

Of course he was, thinks Arthur drily. “Well, we don’t care,” he says staunchly. 

“Can you introduce me as a viscount?” asks Eames. 

“Are you a viscount?” asks Meredith, sounding interested. 

“According to Arthur and the Internet.” 

“Not according to me.” 

“Darling, it was your bet.” 

“Let’s change the subject,” says Arthur. “How did you end up getting this gig, Meredith?” 

“The network’s promoting my new show. It’s about designing for single people.” 

“How is that different from designing for not-single people?” asks Eames.

“Actually,” Meredith says, “I think it would be great if you could come on my show! You’re a perfect example of how you can catch a mate using a design.” 

“He didn’t lay a trap for me,” Arthur says, a little offended. 

“My advice would be: Design for the person you are. And then, when someone likes your design, you know they genuinely like you. That’s the secret to designing for a single person,” says Eames. 

“That wouldn’t even fill a whole episode, never mind a whole season,” Meredith points out. 

“Let’s get started!” Mal shouts, clapping her hands to get their attention. 

“Got to go,” Meredith says, and scurries off to the stage. 

There’s a lot of adjustments with the lighting and a lot of French swearing by Mal. Arthur stands in the wings and watches all of it. 

“Guess it’s a good thing we’re having a rehearsal,” says Ariadne next to him. 

“Ari,” Arthur says in surprise, turning to her. “I didn’t even know you were here.” 

“We’re here. We have to rehearse, too.” 

“Ready for tonight?” Eames asks jovially. 

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Ariadne answers. 

“That means you’re ready,” says Eames cheerfully. 

Meredith shouts for Arthur and Eames.

“That’s our cue, I guess,” says Arthur, and then assures Ariadne, “You’re going to be great.” 

“I’m just hoping I don’t go down in history for being sick all over national television,” Ariadne replies. 

“Arthur and Eames!” Mal shouts from the stage. “You have to make that cue!” 

“Break a leg,” Ariadne tells them. 

Arthur smiles at her and then walks out onto the stage with Eames. 

Meredith says, “Blah, blah, blah. I’ll ask you some questions, we’ll have a little chat, and then the contestants will come on.” 

“What about Alec?” Eames asks. “When does he come on?” 

“Oh, not until much later,” says Meredith. “You know, that whole spectacular dramatic entrance thing.” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “Wait, what?” 

“No,” says Eames. “We don’t know. Mal! Why isn’t Alec coming on until later?” 

“He requested it.” Mal shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t mind having to spend less time with him.”

“I don’t like it,” Arthur says. 

“Because he’s getting a special entrance?” replies Mal. “Don’t get all diva on me now.”

“I don’t care about that,” Arthur tells her. “I care about whatever crazy thing he’s got up his sleeve. The combination of live television and Alec is a recipe for disaster.” 

“Or huge ratings,” Mal points out. “Don’t be such a glass-half-empty person, Arthur, my lovely.” 

Arthur is an entirely-empty-glass person when it comes to Alec. Entirely-empty-glass-with-no-drinkable-liquid-remaining-anywhere-in-the-house. 

Eames says, “Where _is_ Alec?” 

Which is probably something Arthur should have noticed much earlier but he tends not to seek Alec out.

“Didn’t want to come to rehearsal,” says Mal. 

“I wish I’d known this was optional,” notes Eames. “Arthur and I could have stayed home, too.” 

“Relax,” says Mal. “He’s only going to be on the show for a short time, and it’s not like Alec would have learned anything in rehearsal. He’s just going to do whatever he wants to do anyway.”

Arthur concedes that Mal has a point there. And it’s not like he actually _wants_ to spend more time with Alec. It’s still an annoying double standard. 

A few more hours, Arthur thinks, and then he’s done with Alec Hart forever. 

He cannot fucking wait.


	189. Chapter 189

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone in the comment party linked to the Orgy print shirt Eames wears here, but I couldn't find the link, so here's a link to a bunch of images of it: https://www.google.com/search?q=orgy+print+shirt&espv=2&biw=1164&bih=565&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=SIRmVbagJozAsAWHxoHgBQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=1.65
> 
> EDIT: It was bleep0bleep who brought up the Orgy shirt in the Reddit. Thanks to entrecomillas for pointing it out! http://archiveofourown.org/comments/30800560
> 
> And thank you all for the Saito headcanon!

“I do not even know, you guys,” Julia says to them when they report to her for makeup, and shakes her head. 

Arthur understands the sentiment. Backstage is currently a complete clusterfuck. People are running around shouting nonsense at each other. 

Eames remarks, “You’d think something actually legitimately important was going on here. It’s just a television show. We’re going to judge a couple of desks.” 

Julia shakes her head. “Live TV. Everyone’s lost their minds.”

“It’s because everyone has to be competent for a change,” says Arthur. 

“Which explains why you are cool as a cucumber,” Julia says. “Turn around, let me see this suit.” 

“Right?” says Eames. “I chose it for him. We almost didn’t make it to makeup because I almost tore him out of it.”

Which is basically true, thinks Arthur, given the look in Eames’s eye when Arthur’d changed into the suit and the little growl he’d given. Arthur is looking forward to the suit being torn off later tonight. 

“ _You_ chose that, Eames?” says Julia, eyebrows raised. “I am _impressed_.”

Arthur clarifies, “Well. I chose it, but Eames bought it for me as a gift.”

“So my money chose it. Kind of.” 

“Eames, you give the best gifts. You should give yourself a great gift every once in a while. For instance, are you trying to see how many obscenely patterned shirts you can get on this show?” Julia tries and utterly fails to look disapproving. 

Eames beams with pleasure at this accusation. “This one’s called ‘Orgy.’ I thought it was very appropriate.” 

“And by ‘very appropriate,’ he doesn’t mean we’re having an orgy after the show is over,” says Arthur. 

“You know, here we are, last episode of the show, and you’ve still never invited me to your sex club. And I like to think we’re friends now, Arthur.” 

Arthur sighs. “I promise you, Julia: I don’t run a sex club.” 

“If you don’t run a sex club, your talents are absolutely wasted.” 

“My sex-club-management talents?” says Arthur. 

Julia nods. 

“I don’t even know what those are,” says Arthur. 

“I do,” says Eames. “And you have a lot of them.” 

“There they are,” says someone behind Julia. “My men of the hour.” 

Arthur ducks a little bit to see beyond Julia and blinks in surprise at Saito. 

Eames says, his own surprise evident, “Saito. Did we know you were coming?” 

“Did you truly think I would miss your night of great triumph? Besides, your lovely mother needs an escort for the afterparty, does she not?” Saito looks unblinkingly at Arthur. 

Arthur thinks about poisonous goldfish. Mostly because his mouth is opening and shutting without any sound coming out, rather like a goldfish. 

Eames says carefully, “Saito. Is that…an Armes tiepin you’re wearing?” 

Arthur has to lean closer to Saito to see it, but yes, it’s definitely a tiepin on which is engraved _#armes5eva_. 

“You can buy everything on the Internet,” Saito says mildly, and then drifts away as vaporously as he appeared. 

Julia says, “Okay, that was weird. Who’s that?” and nudges Arthur back into position so she can finish his makeup. 

“Our agent,” Eames answers, sounding dazed. 

“He’s…I don’t have words for it.” 

“He’s dating Arthur’s mother.” 

“No, he’s not,” Arthur denies. “Stop that.” 

“Okay, he’s hot, Arthur. She should definitely be hitting that.” 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “Change this topic of conversation.” 

“Do you think that Saito has a Twitter account?” Eames asks, sounding intrigued. 

“I think I can’t believe you noticed his fucking tiepin when he was talking about taking my mother to a party.”

“I’m sure he’ll be a perfect gentleman,” Eames assures him. “Unless your mother wants him to be an imperfect gentleman.” Eames waggles his eyebrows. 

Julia says, “Ha!” and then she and Eames high-five like that was some brilliant piece of repartee. 

Mal walks by, puffing on a cigarette. 

“Can you smoke in here?” Eames asks curiously. 

“No,” says Mal, and then keeps walking. 

“She seems very calm,” Eames remarks to Julia, as he and Arthur switch places. 

“I think she’s high. Or drunk.” 

“She’s just French,” Eames says. “Tell Julia about the French, Arthur.” 

Arthur says in French, “The French speak French.” 

“Sexy, right?” Eames asks Julia. 

“ _Oui_ ,” says Julia. “Say something else.” 

Arthur says in French, “You realize I’m not saying anything sexy, right? I’m literally just saying a sentence.” 

“Okay, that’s enough,” Julia says. “You’ll make everyone faint.” 

Cobb wanders by, saying, “Hi, guys. Have you seen Mal?” 

Arthur and Eames both point in the direction Mal went. 

Eames says, “I think I’d like to start placing bets on how disastrous this evening is going to be.” 

And, on cue, Alec arrives. He’s dressed in pretty standard clothes, his usual fedora slapped atop his head. Apparently, this show didn’t merit anything exciting wardrobe-wise. 

Alec says, “Greetings,” like they’re in some kind of fucking Victorian play. 

Eames lifts an eyebrow at him. 

Arthur says, “Hi.” 

“I am very eager for tonight’s festivities,” says Alec. “As I would imagine we all are.” 

Eames says, “Counting down the minutes.” 

Alec says, “Indeed,” and then leaves. 

“Wait!” Julia calls after him. “Alec! You’ve got to put on your makeup! What the hell,” she mutters. 

“Seriously,” says Arthur, “what do you think he’s up to?” 

“Maybe he doesn’t plan on appearing on the finale at all,” says Eames. 

“I would be fine with that,” says Arthur. 

“Me, too,” agrees Eames. 

“Well, unless he comes to see me about makeup, if he does go on the finale, he’ll look terrible,” concludes Julia.


	190. Chapter 190

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an incredible announcement to make: 
> 
> THE LIVE FINALE WILL BEGIN TOMORROW. 
> 
> And go on indefinitely. So don't party too hard tomorrow not lest you be unable to keep the party going for the next infinity days until the finale ends...

Arthur’s mother texts him a selfie. A _selfie_. Arthur has never gotten a selfie from his mother before. It’s her crowded next to Maggie and Albert, all of them beaming. Saito is sitting next to her looking vaguely amused, which is probably the closest Saito ever gets to beaming. Anyway, they all look very happy, and Arthur isn’t sure how this all came about but that can be said for most things in his life and he’s learned not to question it and just embrace the delightfulness. His mother looks happy, and if Saito sitting next to her beaming has anything to do with that, then he is all for that. (As long as Saito is treating her well, of course. Arthur does not know what he would do if Saito didn’t treat her well. But Arthur also thinks he might be over-thinking it and he can’t be on the edge of a panic spiral right before a live show so he just takes a deep breath and focuses on the fact that Saito has always treated him and Eames well and so surely will be just as nice to his mother.)

So Arthur texts his mother back with a simple _Enjoy the show!_ and then finds himself standing backstage with Eames with nothing to do, just watching all of the frantic activity going on around them. All of which they are weirdly disconnected from. Arthur hasn’t felt so disconnected on-set in a really long time. Normally he’s a lot more involved in what’s happening. Or at least he’s supportively fielding Cobb’s whining about how hard it is to produce a show. 

Arthur thinks of the very first time he reported for work on _Love It or List It_ , with no idea what to expect, in a much cheaper suit, his script folded in his inside jacket pocket, all of his lines carefully memorized. And then there was Eames, flirting with him shamelessly and calling him “darling” and never once sticking to the script. Arthur had been utterly bewildered by everything about television but he had been even more bewildered by this odd designer he’d been stuck with. 

And now, thinks Arthur, he’s somehow managed to fall in love with both television and his odd designer. Now, most of the time, he feels very at-home on a set, and when he leaves his sets, he goes home to a home with Eames. Arthur has spent his whole life looking for homes, and it’s nice to think that he doesn’t have to look for himself anymore. That he never will ever again. That everything he’s found suits him, makes him happy. His life isn’t a model home, his life is messy and lived in and if he were his own client he’d say to clean it up, that it’s too personal, too particular, too unique, too _Arthur_. 

Which is, of course, exactly what he loves about it. 

And now they’re standing on the precipice of a whole new adventure, about to film the last ever episode of _Next Big Thing_ , and Arthur’s excited for it all to be over but he also suddenly feels weirdly emotional. A lot of _Next Big Thing_ has been crazy and stressful, but Arthur feels more settled in his own skin than he ever has before, as if the act of having his vision of himself challenged has made him commit harder to it. And he and Eames will go on to lots of things, lots of really incredible things, but they’ll never again be exactly the Arthur and Eames standing here backstage. Not really. He’s excited for their future, but he’s also experiencing a pang of nostalgia at everything they’ve been. 

Mal shouts a five-minute warning. 

Eames next to him says, “Are you nervous? Don’t be. We’ll go and do our jobs as brilliantly as we always do our jobs, just this one last time, and then we’re done with this forever.” 

“I’m not nervous,” Arthur says honestly. “I’m excited. I’m just also…kind of emotional. How fucking weird is it that I’m feeling emotional about leaving behind this show?” 

“I’m really hoping this isn’t the part where you tell me Alec’s grown on you and you want him in our lives,” says Eames. 

Arthur laughs and shakes his head. “No, no, no, nothing like that. I still never want to deal with Alec ever again. But this has been…more fun than I ever imagined it would be. Thank you for thinking we should do this.” 

Eames shakes his head. “That was really you. I suggested we back out after we found out about Alec, but you’re the one who wanted to see it through.” 

“I’m glad we saw it through,” Arthur says. “Are you?” 

Eames smiles at him. “Very glad.” He leans over and kisses Arthur’s hairline and murmurs, “Thank you for doing this with me.” 

“Thanks for doing it with me,” Arthur counters. 

“Let’s call it even,” says Eames. 

“Really just thanks for everything,” Arthur says. 

“Same here.” 

“But not for that shirt. That’s a hideous shirt.” 

Eames chuckles and kisses Arthur’s temple and draws away from him. He smiles a crinkly-eyed smile at him, soft and sweet, and Arthur thinks he has the best life in the entire universe. 

“One minute!” Mal shouts from somewhere, and surely everyone around them is in a fever pitch of activity but Eames’s arms are slung around Arthur’s waist and he’s smiling a gorgeous smile just for Arthur’s benefit and Arthur feels like he would live this one moment for eternity if he could, he feels so quietly pleased with everything. 

“Let’s go be fucking good at our jobs,” Arthur says, to ground himself, to try to remind himself of their professional obligations. 

“But not too fucking good,” says Eames. “I can’t be held responsible for my actions when you come over all competent.” 

“I am going to be so fucking competent right now,” says Arthur, “it’s going to qualify as foreplay.”


	191. Chapter 191

Meredith, at least in her first few moments, seems like a good host, and Arthur relaxes a little bit. She gives a great introduction about how she, like the rest of America, has been simply obsessed with following _Next Big Thing_ , and then allows time for raucous applause. And then she says that she is very grateful for the guides through the show, the judges, and there’s a montage of judge moments from the season. Most of them are of Arthur’s reaction shots, although his speech about gender equality gets a shout-out, as does his Hall of Mirrors spin on Misty Rainbow’s room. Eames gets his speech about decorating with feathers from really early in the show, as well as a few other sound bites. Alec mainly lays his hand over his heart. A lot. 

And then Meredith says, “Obviously our judges are here tonight, to entertain us through this live finale as they’ve been entertaining us all year. They don’t really need any introduction but I’m going to introduce them anyway. They’re a team on-screen as well as off and if you can choose a favorite between them you’re a better person than I. Eames and Arthur!” 

Eames suddenly slides his hand into Arthur’s, and they didn’t discuss this but it feels like a natural way to walk onto the stage, hand-in-hand. Eames waves in the direction of the bright lights shining on them. Arthur assumes that’s where the audience is, although he can’t see it at all, blinded by the lights. He attempts to give a little wave to them nonetheless. Then Meredith embraces them and they all sit. The crowd is still cheering their entrance and it all feels otherworldly. 

When the noise finally dies down, Eames says in delight, “This is like being a movie star.” He looks out at the audience. “This is better than the Oscars, am I right? At the Oscars you have to put up with a really boring four-hour show. Our show’s going to zip along and be very entertaining as well as on time and if it starts to drag Arthur’s going to start removing articles of clothing.” 

The crowd loves this idea. 

Arthur shakes his head and says, “Look at this suit. I’m keeping this on. You start stripping.”

“Darling, you really never need to ask me twice,” remarks Eames, and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. 

Arthur actually winces at how loud the crowd gets. He leans over and presses Eames’s hand against his chest to stop it and says, “Pace yourself, you don’t know how boring this show might get.” 

There is laughter, and Arthur feels himself relaxing even more. He is bantering with Eames. This is, after all, what he _does_. 

Meredith says, “You mentioned your suit, Arthur, so get up and show it off.” 

Arthur does, because it _is_ a fucking gorgeous suit and everyone should get to admire it. It gets appropriate and deserved wolf whistles, thinks Arthur. 

Eames says, as Arthur sits down, “You might think that’s a special-occasion suit but it’s basically Arthur’s regular Tuesday suit.” 

“It’s true,” deadpans Arthur. “You don’t want to go too overboard on a Tuesday.” 

“Got to keep it tasteful,” agrees Meredith. 

“You save the sequin suits for Fridays,” says Eames. 

“On Saturdays it’s just a Speedo,” says Arthur, and the crowd cheers and whistles again, and Arthur thinks he’s definitely gotten the hang of this live audience thing. 

“We tend not to leave the house on Saturdays,” adds Eames, and the crowd laughs. 

“Meanwhile, Eames,” says Meredith, “you appear to be wearing a shirt that probably shouldn’t be examined too closely by the viewers at home.” 

“That’s basically my style,” Eames informs her confidently. 

Arthur shakes his head and rolls his eyes for the benefit of the reaction gif. 

“Now,” says Meredith, turning to the camera, “as we all know we could sit and listen to Eames and Arthur banter all day, but we must move on. _Next Big Thing_ had another judge, of course, in Alec Hart, but Alec has requested to join the live taping later, so it’s at this time that I will call on to the stage your final four _Next Big Thing_ contestants!” 

The crowd cheers and Sunny, Ariadne, Gon, and Misty Rainbow file out to the stage one by one, waving to the crowd. They all look vaguely uncomfortable and mildly embarrassed by the amount of attention they’re receiving, except for Misty Rainbow, who looks as serene as a queen, as if this is all just her due. Arthur suspects she probably meditated a lot before coming on. 

“Welcome, welcome!” Meredith gushes at them. “And congratulations on making it to the end!” 

They all murmur thank yous. 

Meredith says, “Are you excited?” 

“Mostly just terrified,” says Ariadne lightly, and the crowd laughs supportively along with her. Arthur is pleased, since Ariadne needs the voting public on her side to win. 

Meredith says, “Don’t be terrified! Most of us don’t bite! Except for Eames. He seems like a biter. Arthur?” Meredith looks to him queryingly.

“Depends on the amount of wine involved,” deadpans Arthur. 

Eames gives him one of the exaggerated leers he does for the camera. 

Meredith says, “Don’t make us separate you boys,” and then gets back to business. “We are going to talk much more with the contestants about everything that happened on the set of _Next Big Thing_ , but first, they had a challenge to undertake. When we get back from the break, we’re going to take a look at what happened when the contestants designed libraries.” 

The audience applauds, and then they’re at the commercial break. Someone Arthur’s never seen before runs out and smooths down a lock of his hair, then runs off-stage. 

“Hopefully that person works for the network,” Arthur remarks. 

“I feel rather jealous he had his hands in your hair,” Eames replies. 

“Julia probably feels worse,” Arthur points out. 

Meredith says, “We’re doing really well. Everything’s going really well.” 

Sunny says, “Yeah, but Alec’s not here yet.” 

Which everyone concedes is a really excellent point.


	192. Chapter 192

They play a montage of the contestants coming up with their library designs. Arthur is most interested to hear what Misty Rainbow has to say but it’s mostly the same stuff that she said to them when they were judging, about learning from nature. Sunny gives an interview in the segment where she says that she thinks Misty Rainbow is taking a huge risk not having any books at all in her room. Sunny also admits that she thinks her design is also a risk, but she thinks her library works as a browsing place, a place where you go for something totally unplanned, for unexpected surprises in the books you pull out of the bucket. It’s a lovely justification for the room and Arthur is glad that interview exists because he thinks it explains the feeling of Sunny’s library better than Sunny did on the day of the judging. 

The show briefly comes back to Meredith to remind all the viewers of all the _big_ things coming up, and then it’s to another commercial. 

Julia comes out this time to touch up their makeup. 

“These lights are brutal,” she tells them. “You must be dying in this suit, Arthur.” 

“It’s a bit warm,” Arthur admits. “But it’s okay because I love this suit and a little warmth is a small price to pay for it.” 

“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m dying in my Orgy shirt?” Eames asks. 

“You’re always dying in that shirt, Eames,” says Julia. “Dying from crimes against fashion. High-five, Arthur.” 

Arthur high-fives her. 

Eames raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Well, she’s got a good point,” Arthur says. 

“Darling, really, you of all people should be utterly besotted with any shirt called ‘orgy.’”

Arthur notices Meredith eavesdropping and says for her benefit, “I’m not actually an orgy-master.” 

“It’s really none of my business,” Meredith says. Then she leans closer to him and hisses, “But, just out of curiosity, how much does it cost to get in?” 

Luckily, Arthur is saved having to respond by the show coming back from commercial, so Meredith has to play official host and remind everyone to watch along on Twitter. 

Arthur’s been trying to watch along on Twitter but the timeline is so explosively busy that it’s impossible to untangle any sense of narrative. Most of the tweets are variations on sobbing despair that _Next Big Thing_ is coming to an end. The episode-specific tweets seem to be almost afterthoughts. And most of the ones that exist focus on Alec’s absence. Speculation is wild as to why he’s not there. There are those, of course, who think that Eames and Arthur demanded he be cut out of the finale, and Arthur wonders if this was Alec’s plan, and then decides it’s too clever to have been Alec’s plan. 

The judging of the designs starts on the episode being screened. Ariadne’s library looks utterly fantastic on-screen, and Arthur thinks again how she almost lost and how Alec is so ridiculous. At that moment, Alec on-screen says to Ariadne, “It’s just so distressing to think that this is the final time we will be facing a judging like this together, before the finale. It has been so lovely getting to know you, Ariadne. I feel as if I truly grasp who you are… _here_.” 

Arthur checks his phone. Some tweets read, _What is he even talking about??? He never liked Ariadne!_ , but there are a few that state, _Wait, does this mean Alec slept with Ari, too? This is gross!_ They’re being encouraged to interact live with the Twitter watchers, and Arthur isn’t surprised to see Ariadne tweet, _For the record: I HAVE NEVER HAD SEX WITH ALEC HART._ But Arthur also thinks, ruefully, that Eames would say that that’s exactly what Ariadne would say if she _had_ had sex with Alec Hart. 

Arthur on-screen says, “Great job, Ari. Two thumbs up.” 

Arthur in real life is startled by the live audience applauding his statement. It’s as if Twitter has suddenly come to life and is now sitting right next to him. 

Alec babbles about wombs and Eames speaks directly into the camera: “If you’re playing _Next Big Thing_ bingo at home, I bet you didn’t think you’d get to check off ‘Alec mentions wombs’ twice.” 

“We’re going to pause it here,” says Meredith, abruptly pulling the episode back into live material rather than pre-filmed, “because we want to know: Do you play _Next Big Thing_ bingo at home? What would you put on your _Next Big Thing_ bingo card? Tweet your responses using the hashtag ‘NBT bingo.’”

“I would think a _Next Big Thing_ drinking game would be more likely,” remarks Eames drily. 

“Also,” Meredith says, still speaking into the camera, “feel free to tell us your _Next Big Thing_ drinking game, too.” Meredith turns to Arthur and Eames and the remaining contestants. “Do you play _Next Big Thing_ drinking games?” 

The contestants all murmur vague _not really_ s. 

Eames says, “Arthur and I never play drinking games because of how mature we are.” 

This gets a laugh from the audience. 

Arthur says to Eames, “People literally think you must be telling a joke when you call yourself mature.” 

“I called _us_ mature, darling, so the joke’s on both of us.” 

Arthur just shakes his head. 

Meredith smiles and says, “Let’s move on to the next contestant. Here’s Sunny’s library!” 

There’s applause, and then a lovely shot of Sunny’s library, warm and inviting. 

Arthur tweets, _Maybe books in buckets aren’t practical. But where’s your sense of adventure? #nbtfinal_. 

Eames tweets in reply, _My influence on you, darling! Adventure keeps life (and love) fresh!_

Alec on-screen says, “Sunny. We have come so far. Together. I feel… _responsible_ …for you.” He delivers this pronouncement very solemnly, standing before her in what Arthur recognizes is a pose. Arthur has begun to realize that Alec always stands in poses, like he always expects everyone around him to have a camera. 

Sunny says, “I kind of feel responsible for myself.” 

The audience cheers so hard and so loud that it swallows up Eames’s next line. Arthur looks at Sunny, who is smiling embarrassedly at the attention, and can’t help but feel proud of her. Not like he can take credit for who Sunny is, but he’s so delighted with how far she’s come. 

And then, of course, Eames follows up the emotional moment by saying on-screen that he loves making out in libraries. Which is a huge hit on Twitter. _I’ll snog Eames in a library any day that ends in y. #nbtfinale_

The episode moves on to Misty Rainbow’s room, and Twitter generally asks, _What makes this room a library? #nbtfinale_. _Exactly_ , thinks Arthur triumphantly. Seeing all of the rooms again like this, he thinks their elimination vote definitely came out the right way. 

And then Misty Rainbow and Alec start their awkward exchange on-screen and Twitter basically goes insane. Which Arthur doesn’t blame them for, because that conversation was truly insane to witness. 

_Oh, my god, why is Alec saying these things??? #nbtfinale_

_Alec really doesn’t know when to shut up. #nbtfinale_

_Oh, Misty Rainbow. #nbtfinale #misty4standinguptoAlec_

_Alec, you’re claiming mediocre sex with Misty Rainbow *and* Eames. I’ve got to think the problem is YOU here. #nbtfinale_

Possibly, Arthur thinks, smiling, that’s his favorite tweet of the night so far.


	193. Chapter 193

Gon’s room gets a warm reception from Twitter. Arthur is most amused by the tweets that say things like _Gon constructed a puzzle and a maze. IT’S A LOVE LETTER TO ARIADNE, RIGHT????_. The contestants have been encouraged to tweet along with the episode, too, and Arthur glances at Ariadne to see if she’s reading the tweets, but Ariadne looks like she’s concentrating on taking deep breaths and not fainting. 

On the episode, Alec says to Gon, “Gon. You are the last person we will judge in this manner. So forgive me if I get…emotional.” 

_Is he crying???_ , demands Twitter. 

“Are you _crying_?” asks Eames on the episode. 

“Maybe a little,” Alec answers him. “I just hate to leave everyone.” And then Alec hugs Gon. 

Twitter goes a little crazy with incoherence. 

_Did Gon just steal the title for Best Reaction Shot of the Episode from Arthur? #nbtfinale_

_Why is Alec touching other people? Isn’t he content with touching his own heart anymore? #nbtfinale_

_I want Alec to try to hug Arthur. I want to see what would happen. #nbtfinale_

Eames knocks a bunch of books off a shelf on the episode, and then Meredith promises the viewers at home, “When we come back, we’re going to find out who your final three contestants are!” 

They roll into a commercial break. Julia comes out and fusses over their makeup. 

“Tell me we come across extra-attractive during a live show,” Eames says to her. 

Julia ignores that, says instead, “The network’s having a fit over your shirt, you know. Mal keeps explaining to them that the human body is a beautiful thing. It’s all very French. I think it’s hilarious but your old producer guy is basically chugging antacid at the moment.” 

“I can take my shirt off if they like,” Eames offers. 

“He’s looking for any excuse to take his shirt off,” Arthur tells Julia. 

“Darling, you’re the one I’d like to convince to strip.” 

Arthur removes a single cufflink and drops it into Eames’s lap. There is nothing inherently sexy about a cufflink, but Arthur knows that Eames’s awareness of the new lack of symmetry in Arthur’s suit will drive Eames wild. One of Eames’s favorite things is being aware that Arthur is slightly undone underneath his cool, calm, collected exterior. When Eames needs cheering up, sometimes Arthur will wear a pointless t-shirt under his suit. Eames adores getting to unpeel his first couple of layers to get to the just-for-Eames layer underneath. 

“Absolutely filthy,” Eames accuses in a murmur, after Julia finishes. 

Arthur smirks at his phone as he scrolls through Twitter. “It’s a cufflink, Viscount. Hardly a bra being flung at you.” 

“Which is what makes it so ingeniously filthy,” answers Eames, and tucks it into the pocket of his jeans. 

Across from them, Sunny is saying something about how weird it is to pretend that they don’t know who’s going to be eliminated. Arthur scrolls through Twitter, which is mainly saying things like, _It’s got to be Misty Rainbow, right? She didn’t even try to make a library!_ and _I love Misty Rainbow, I really do, but her room doesn’t deserve to help her make the final three. But #teammisty4eva, seriously!!_ Arthur doesn’t really see any tweets coming to a different conclusion about who should be eliminated. 

Arthur says wryly to Eames, “Alec clearly isn’t tweeting, not even from a fake account. I can’t find anyone who thinks anyone other than Misty Rainbow should be eliminated.” 

“And where _is_ Alec?” wonders Eames, frowning a little. 

“Not here,” Arthur says, still skimming over Twitter. “Which is all that matters to me.”

“He’s up to something,” Eames says. 

Arthur looks up from his phone and grins at Eames. “Do you feel it _here_?” he asks, and then solemnly puts a hand over Eames’s heart. 

“I’m serious,” Eames says, and he does seem to be serious. 

Arthur never mocks Eames when he’s in a serious mood. He enters them so seldom that Arthur makes sure to always tackle them with the gravity they deserve. So he puts his phone down and looks at Eames and says, “What could he be up to?”

“I don’t know,” Eames says. “That’s what worries me.” 

“Could he say or do anything that would make you feel differently about me?” Arthur asks frankly. Because that’s really the heart of the matter. All of Alec’s other behavior is so much window dressing that Arthur can’t be bothered to register anymore. Arthur only cares about Alec to the extent Alec can hurt their relationship, and that seems massively unlikely to Arthur. 

“Of course not,” Eames says. “I just worry about what dirt he could be digging up.” 

“Like naked photos from Betsy?” drawls Arthur sarcastically. “You think the network would care? They’ve done nothing but _promote_ that footage from the club, for fuck’s sake.” 

“I don’t care about the network, darling. I care about what he could be doing that could hurt you.” 

“Have you cheated on me?” Arthur asks. 

Eames gives him a look. 

“Have you ever killed anyone in premeditated cold blood?” 

“That is an awfully specific question, but no.” 

“Then I’m not worried about whatever fucking dirt Alec might be trying to dig up. We’re on solid rock, you and me. There’s nowhere for him to even dig.” 

Eames says, “Christ, I hope so,” and kisses Arthur’s temple. 

“Careful of my makeup,” Arthur says. 

“Vanity, they name is Arthur,” Eames replies.

“True story,” agrees Arthur, and grins.


	194. Chapter 194

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to GretaOto for the harness idea. My plan was to just have Alec walk onto the stage. Clearly that would never have done!!

The episode comes back and on-screen is playing the tense elimination scene. Mal has built it up with lots of generic filler shots of people looking, well, tense. Arthur thinks he looks murderous, but probably he’s just coming across as tense, too. 

He checks Twitter just to make sure and is surprised to find that the current most popular tweet involving him is a recent tweet from Ariadne: _The Times article is right: They’re just as sweet when the camera’s not rolling. #nbtfinale #ames5eva_ There’s a picture attached, one she obviously snapped while Arthur and Eames were chatting during the break. They’re looking at each other, eyes locked and crinkly and warm, both of them smiling. It’s the kind of picture of the two of them that is Arthur’s favorite, caught candidly and genuinely. He always mildly dislikes the pictures he takes that look too posed but this picture is perfect. They’re totally absorbed in each other, as if the rest of the chaos around them doesn’t exist, and Arthur loves it, thinks it’s a perfect metaphor for how they’ve made it through this show, how they’ll make it through all the rest to come. 

He looks up to smile a thank-you at Ariadne. Ariadne’s watching him and she winks. 

On-screen Alec starts to speak and Eames immediately interrupts him to announce Sunny as the victor. 

Twitter seems mildly surprised by that, but there are also a few who staunchly support the victory. Even the ones who seem surprised say nice things about Sunny, though, which Arthur thinks is totally deserved because Sunny is sweet and has come a long way. She needs a bit more nudging than Gon and Ariadne, isn’t entirely her own person yet, not fully confident of her designs yet, but she’s really getting there. 

Arthur considers writing up a defense of his position on Sunny’s win, noting that she managed to carefully reimagine a new kind of library in a way that still left space for reading while also radically re-envisioning how reading happens, but before he can even get it started Eames on-screen talks over Alec again to announce that Misty Rainbow is being eliminated. As Eames starts to congratulate Sunny on her win, Alec interjects, and then Eames tries to dissuade him, and then Alec says passionately, “I just want Misty Rainbow to know that I voted for her design. That I was loyal to the end.” 

Arthur can’t resist abandoning his Sunny tweet and checking for the reaction to Misty Rainbow’s elimination instead. The first tweet he reads says, _What the hell, Alec. First you sleep with her, then you’re cruel to her, then you vote for that mess of a design? Step away, Alec._

On-screen, Misty Rainbow says, “Go to hell,” and the live studio audience bursts into applause. 

Arthur looks up, surprised, mostly because he’d almost forgotten the studio audience was there watching along. And the live audience is actually giving Misty Rainbow a standing ovation. Arthur looks across at Misty Rainbow. She looks overwhelmed by this, like she doesn’t know how to react. Sunny leans over to whisper something to her, smiling widely. 

Meredith gestures for everyone to be quiet, and eventually the crowd quiets down. And Meredith says, “Now I know you want to hear from Misty Rainbow all about that dramatic departure, but first—”

Out of nowhere there sounds a trumpet blast, as if they’ve gone back in time to Camelot and King Arthur is about to arrive (Arthur was exposed to a lot of Camelot legend when he was a kid, because of his name). Everyone looks around in confusion. Arthur wonders if someone hit the sound effect by mistake, which seems likely for their chaotic show. 

But Meredith says, “Oh, is it time?” looking off-stage for guidance, and then back to the camera, smiling nervously. “I guess it’s time.” 

Arthur glances at Eames, whose eyebrows are lifted in confusion. He shrugs at Arthur. _Your guess is as good as mine._

Meredith says, “He wanted to delay his entrance in order to allow some focus on the others, but now I am pleased to present to you the man who all season has given his heart so willingly to these contestants, as mentor and as confidante and finally as friend. Ladies and gentlemen, the heart of the show: Alec Hart.” 

And then there is more heralding fanfare and Alec descends _from the actual fucking ceiling_. In a harness. Wearing a blood-red suit and a sequined black fedora. He is gesturing theatrically as he descends, like some kind of fucking benevolent god. Arthur stares. Eames, next to him, is in actual paroxysms of laughter. When Alec reaches the stage—safely—he struggles a little bit to get out of the harness, tripping and almost knocking the hat off of his head. _Should have rehearsed_ , thinks Arthur. The fanfare keeps heralding through Alec’s clumsy exit. Finally Alec recovers and walks up center-stage and stands there waving enthusiastically to the crowd, even though the crowd is barely applauding because the crowd seems too shocked to even know what to do. And still the fucking fanfares keep heralding. 

Arthur forgets he’s on live television and looks at Eames and says, “What the actual fuck.”

Misty Rainbow either also forgets she’s on live television or just doesn’t care. She stands up and puts her hands on her hips and demands loudly, “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“I hope the censors are awake and on their toes,” murmurs Eames. 

“What is he _doing_?” hisses Arthur. 

“I am not kidding,” Alec intones grandly. “I am here to speak truth. The truth that this show has long sorely needed. No more kidding. No more editing. Only truth. That is a concept that I believe you adore, Misty Rainbow, is it not?” 

“You wouldn’t know truth if it bit you in the ass,” Misty Rainbow retorts. 

“Everything I’ve done—” begins Alec. 

“Go to commercial!” shouts Meredith suddenly. “Sorry, we’re just…going to commercial.” She kind of hops in front of Alec, smiling as brightly as she can. 

And then the show goes to commercial. 

Alec turns and calls for makeup as if nothing unusual has just happened. 

Misty Rainbow throws up her hands and says, “I’m done,” and marches off the stage. 

Eames says calmly—because Eames always manages to be the most calm when dealing with Alec—“What are you up to, Alec?” 

“Exactly what I said. I’m going to speak the truth. Does that worry you, Eames?” Alec looks at Eames challengingly. 

“No,” Eames answers flatly. “I don’t know what kind of veiled threat you think you’re making but you should sit here and you should shut up and maybe when this is over you’ll have a career.” 

Alec laughs. Not that over-exaggerated laugh he used to do to Arthur all the time. This sounds like a genuine laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you. Pretending that you care about my career. After what you did to it.” 

Arthur’s attention has been caught off-stage, where he’s fairly sure he can see Mal consulting with Saito. What could _that_ be about? 

Eames is sighing, “I didn’t do anything to your career, Alec—”

“It isn’t even worth the trouble to argue with him,” Arthur tells Eames. “He’s dressed like the _literal devil_. Alec, do whatever the fuck you want.” Arthur stands and goes off to Mal, with the intention of telling her to get Alec the fuck off the show immediately and also to ask Saito what the fuck is going on that he’s backstage now when he’s supposed to be romancing Arthur’s mother or whatever. 

Saito says when he sees him, his tone even and level, “Arthur—”

“Get him off the show, Mal,” Arthur demands. “This is supposed to be a career-defining moment for Sunny and Gon and Ariadne and he is making it all about him and enough is enough and I want him off the show, I don’t care what ratings you’re cooking up. He goes or I go.” 

“There is no need for such a drastic remedy,” Saito inserts calmly. “I have a solution.” 

“What solution?” Arthur asks. 

“Go back on stage and do your usual brilliant job,” Saito tells him. “Mal and I are taking care of the rest.” 

Arthur does not like this. He says that. “You need to tell me—”

Saito shakes his head and says mildly, “They’re counting you in from commercial.” 

Arthur realizes that, fuck, they are. Meredith is shouting his name urgently. Eames is frowning at Alec. Arthur doesn’t want to leave Eames out there alone, so he darts back to the stage, but not without casting a warning look over his shoulder at Saito and Mal. Alec is busy trying to perfect the angle of his head. 

When Arthur gets settled next to Eames, Eames turns to him and says loudly, “This is supposed to be about Gon and Ariadne and Sunny.”

Alec doesn’t even glance at them. 

“We’ll make it about them,” Arthur says, and leans closer to Eames so he can murmur in his ear. “Also, apparently Saito and Mal have a plan.” 

“ _Saito_?” echoes Eames. “And _Mal_? What the hell?” 

“You’re the one who always says to trust him,” Arthur points out, keeping his voice low, even though he’s not thrilled to death that they don’t know the plan, either. 

“Yeah,” Eames says after a second. “You’re right.” 

“We just have to do our jobs. For another hour or so. And then we’re done. Ready?” 

Meredith welcomes them back from the break just as Eames nods and agrees, “Ready.”


	195. Chapter 195

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Red Sox tickets tomorrow night so there probably won't be a chapter, but I bet you can fill the time with speculation! ;-)

Meredith welcomes Alec to the show again, as if anyone could forget that the last segment ended with his arrival. 

“Thank you,” says Alec. “I am excited and honored and flattered to be here.” He places a hand over his heart. “I know that too often things can be All About Me. Trust me, I am _hyper_ -aware of the amount of reaction I cause every time I walk into a room. So I was striving to make sure that I gave the contestants some time on their own to shine. It wasn’t meant to be any sort of snub of the contestants and I sincerely hope you don’t feel that way.” 

Sunny and Ariadne and Gon just stare at Alec. Arthur doesn’t know what his face looks like but he’s pretty sure Twitter is probably loving it. 

Meredith doesn’t look as if she really knows what to do with Alec, and part of Arthur feels for her, because Alec _is_ crazy, and part of Arthur feels like she therefore should have been prepared for how crazy he is if she had watched their show for even a couple of minutes in preparation. At any rate, she clears her throat and says to the camera, “So our last elimination, as you just saw, was a highly dramatic one. We just bid farewell to Misty Rainbow. Let’s take a look at some of her highlights.” 

The episode shifts to a montage full of Misty Rainbow’s time on the show. Her closet encounter with Arthur ranks high, and Arthur marvels at how long ago that seems. And then they show, in its entirety, her epic encounter with Alec’s balls. Arthur glances at Alec while that bit is shown but Alec looks very unconcerned. 

The montage ends and Meredith says awkwardly, “So. That was Misty Rainbow’s time on the show. And I’m sure we’re all going to miss her.” 

There’s a moment of silence. Presumably Misty Rainbow was supposed to speak at this point but she’s no longer there. 

Eames says, “I’ve always respected Misty Rainbow’s aesthetic, and I’m sure we all appreciated the special energy that she brought to our show, and wish her all the best.” 

It’s a lovely thing for Eames to say, because Eames of course is good at that. 

Meredith seems to like the idea of the judges talking about Misty Rainbow, because she says, “Arthur, your interactions with Misty Rainbow were some of the biggest hits on social media. Any closing thoughts on her?” 

Arthur considers before answering. “In the beginning, I don’t think I really got what Misty Rainbow was trying to say, but now I feel like I have a very clear idea of what she was trying to accomplish with her designs. Even if I didn’t always agree with her stance, I do respect how dedicated she was to it.” 

“Arthur was one of Misty Rainbow’s biggest fans,” Eames interjects. “He always had an appreciation for the complexity of her designs that I didn’t necessarily always see at first glance.” 

“I’m not sure it came across on screen very well,” Arthur agrees, “but I was a huge fan of a few of her most recent rooms, especially the outdoor living room.” 

Alec clears his throat very exaggeratedly. Arthur actually wonders what you can do to your throat to make clearing it sound that loud. And then he says, “I’d like to add to this discussion. As the judge who knew her best.” Alec places a hand over his heart, as if that is the source of his knowledge of Misty Rainbow. Arthur wishes he would have placed it over his crotch. 

Arthur also wonders why Alec would even bring his time with Misty Rainbow up. Surely it would be best not to. But Arthur supposes Alec is never actually rational. 

Meredith starts to say, “Well—”

Alec steamrolls right over her. “I would simply wish to say that Misty Rainbow was a true visionary.” 

Eames slouches a little more in his chair and folds his hands together over his abdomen as if he’s settling in for a good story. _Popcorn.gif_ , Arthur calls this pose in his head. 

Alec goes on. “That word gets used in so many circumstances these days, so commonly, so meaninglessly. It is a problem we all have, that we all contribute to. We do not think hard enough about the real meaning of the words we have. We throw them around, pell mell, willy-nilly, like so much glitter and confetti. But at the end of the day, what happens to glitter and confetti? What happens, Meredith?” 

Meredith looks bewildered. “I…don’t know.” 

“We sweep them up, Meredith, and we throw them away. We toss them out. They are nothing but trash. We do not stop to be sure that we truly value the words we use. That we truly _mean_ them. We treat our words…like confetti.” Alec pauses there, as if he has made a point so potent that everyone must absorb it before moving on. 

Eames leans over to murmur in Arthur’s ear, “Darling, your eyebrows can’t actually get any higher than they currently are.” 

Arthur feels like he’s going to set records for eyebrow-raising tonight, if Alec keeps going like this. He gives Eames a look that he hopes conveys this. 

“So,” Alec continues, once he is apparently confident everyone has absorbed his wisdom, “I wish to say that I _truly_ , _sincerely_ mean it when I say that Misty Rainbow is a visionary. That is not to say that she is a prophet, or a psychic, or something weirdo like that. But she _is_ a visionary. Wouldn’t you agree, Arthur?”

Arthur’s startled at being addressed. And no, he doesn’t fucking agree. Misty Rainbow’s a good designer, but she’s not a _visionary_. “I guess I’m much pickier when it comes to the use of the word ‘visionary,’” says Arthur. 

Alec gives him a hard look, like Arthur’s gone off-script. _What fucking script?_ Arthur wants to ask him. _You wouldn’t even deign to rehearse with us._

“So you wouldn’t agree that Misty Rainbow is a visionary?” persists Alec. 

“Martin Luther King was a visionary,” says Arthur. “And, like, Einstein. Thomas Edison.” 

“And Misty Rainbow,” adds Alec, as if he can genuinely see no reason why you wouldn’t put Misty Rainbow on a list with Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein. 

Arthur deadpans, “Having thought hard about the real meaning of the word ‘visionary’ as a word I truly intend and not as glitter or confetti, no, I would not call Misty Rainbow a visionary.” 

Eames muffles laughter under cover of a cross between a snort and a coughing fit. 

Alec says to Meredith, “Arthur has always been biased against her. _For obvious reasons_.” 

Arthur sighs at him and wonders when this tremendous plan of Saito and Mal’s is going to kick in. 

“Alright,” Meredith inserts brightly. “Moving on—”

“We just watched a montage that reminded everyone that you slept with Misty Rainbow under false pretenses and then spoke cruelly of her afterward,” interrupts Eames, with studied casualness. “Do you really want to accuse Arthur of being the one who’s biased?” 

“I voted for Misty Rainbow in the last challenge!” exclaims Alec. “I wasn’t biased against her at all!” 

Arthur thinks of the lawyers at home watching and frowning over Alec’s confidentiality violation in revealing the judicial process of the show. Arthur wonders how he was ever feeling nostalgic for _Next Big Thing_ ; right now he can’t wait to get away from this clusterfuck. 

“I wasn’t talking about being biased _against_ her,” notes Eames. 

“You think I’m biased in favor of Misty Rainbow?” demands Alec, indignant. “Does that make any sense? As you yourself said, I never had any interest in her.” 

“No,” agrees Eames affably. “You never do, do you? You were just using her. But you do have a serious interest in your own ego. And, while we have this debate, you’re the center of attention, so you’re pleased.” Eames pauses. “And still using Misty Rainbow, by the way.” 

Alec starts hotly, “This is not—”

“Let’s look at the judges’ advice to the remaining contestants,” Meredith blurts out, and the pre-recorded segment starts playing again, this time on their final speeches before the challenge reveal. 

Eames covers his microphone and hisses at Alec. “Stop talking about Misty Rainbow, what the fuck.”

Alec gives him a look. “So you want to talk about _other things_?” 

Arthur can’t imagine what Alec even means by that. 

Evidently neither can Eames, because he just snaps, “Be my guest.” 

“Is there, like, a sex tape of the two of you out there?” Arthur hisses in Eames’s ear, because he has no idea what Alec could have that would be in any way damaging to them. 

Eames gives him a look and responds in a murmur, “You think I make sex tapes with everyone? I just want to make a sex tape with _you_. There’s definitely no sex tape of me and Alec.” 

Arthur is relieved because the only thing worse than imagining Eames having sex with Alec would have been having to watch it. “Okay,” he says. 

“Where’s this great Saito plan?” inquires Eames. 

Arthur shrugs, because he’s been wondering the same thing. 

The montage ends and Meredith says, “A desk! When we come back, we’ll see how your remaining contestants rose to the challenge!” 

The commercial break starts, and Alec looks at Eames and Arthur and says, “It’s going pretty well, wouldn’t you say?” And then he actually _winks_. 

Eames says into Arthur’s ear, “I was wrong, turns out your eyebrows actually _can_ go higher.”


	196. Chapter 196

Alec shouts for Julia during the commercial break. 

“Are you sure you’ve done my makeup correctly?” he demands petulantly. “Because you have to do it a very special way because of my hat.” 

Julia gives him a look. “I know. I’ve been dealing with you and your fucking fedora this whole time.” 

Alec looks offended. “Don’t insult my fedora! Who do you think you are?” 

Julia just lifts an eyebrow at him and brushes powder over his nose. 

Arthur sits quietly next to Eames and glances at his watch to see how much time they have left. A little less than an hour. Arthur wishes there was some kind of countdown clock somewhere in the studio. He wants it to be like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. 

Julia finishes up with Alec in time for Alec to shout for Yusuf and to commence complaining about the lighting very loudly. Arthur looks across at Ariadne and Gon and Sunny, who are staring at Alec with dulled looks, as if he’s the best thing to try to focus on.

Julia comes over to Arthur and Eames and gives them both a touch-up and whispers, “You guys look gorgeous, I just needed to come over here and say that Alec Hart is a huge prick and I’m drinking heavily tonight.” 

Eames shakes his head. “Not a huge prick,” he says. 

“Sure, I’ve been fishing for sex details from the two of you this whole time, and the person whose dick you choose to describe is _his_?” says Julia in disbelief. “What about Sebastian Stan?” 

Arthur puts his hands about eighteen inches apart the way he did for Eames on the talk show. 

Julia just rolls her eyes and sighs, “You two,” and then moves away, shaking her head. 

“Darling,” Eames says, draping an arm over his shoulders, “surely Sebastian Stan’s penis is smaller than mine, hmm?” 

Arthur says, “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I’ve seen it.” 

“Ha ha,” Eames says, and kisses the back of his neck, at his hairline, where there’s little makeup for him to mess up. 

Arthur says, “I love you dearly, you know that, but it is very hot for you to be hanging all over me.” 

Eames chuckles into his skin and says, “Agreed,” and presses another kiss there before straightening away from him. “You’re all sweaty and that’s a huge turn-on, though, you know.” 

“All sweaty,” Arthur agrees, “and cufflink-less,” and drops his other cufflink into Eames’s hand. 

“Fuck,” says Eames. 

Arthur winks at him. 

Alec says, “Guys, I really think we should talk about what we’re doing next.” 

“No,” Eames says. “We shouldn’t. Because the time to talk about that would have been at _rehearsal_.” 

“Rehearsal would have ruined the spontaneity,” says Alec. 

“Alec, it doesn’t take much spontaneity to make a heart pun and put your hand over your heart,” Arthur says. 

Alec frowns at him, then says, “You two might not be fully committed to this show. But _I_ am.”

“Alec,” sighs Eames, sounding exasperated. “What does that even fucking mean? Stop talking in bloody riddles and just tell us what the fuck you’re up to.” 

Arthur wishes Mal or Saito would have done that, too. Why is everyone being so fucking secretive? 

“Spontaneity,” Alec sniffs at Eames. 

“You just wanted to talk about what we’re doing next!” Eames points out. 

“Back from commercial in ten! Nine! Eight!” 

Alec carefully tilts his head into apparently the preferred lighting angle and smiles brightly for the cameras. 

Arthur resists the urge to pull out his phone and tweet simply, _What. The. Fuck._


	197. Chapter 197

The edited montage for the desk challenge has been done extremely well, because it reveals absolutely nothing about the finished desks. It mainly consists of interviews with the contestants and some very vague shots of materials being purchased or worked on in ways so generic that anything could have been being constructed. 

Ariadne’s interviews are about trying to make desks fun. “No one wants to go to work,” she says. “I have to find a way to make people _want_ to go to work.” 

Gon’s interviews are about trying to think outside the box when it comes to what a desk is. “I think my weakness in this competition,” he says, “is that I’m not necessarily as completely off-the-wall creative and inventive and, I guess, _playful_ as the other contestants. I really admire their ability to play around with designs. I am…taken with their _joie de vivre_. I can see why everyone loves their designs so much.” 

Arthur wonders if Gon is talking about the other contestants or merely talking about Ariadne. Judging from the peek he sneaks at his phone as the segment is playing, he is not alone. 

_Gon, you can just say ‘Ariadne.’ It’s okay. #nbtfinale #gonriadne5eva_

_I can’t even with how adorable #gonriadne is. He thinks she’s playful!!! I love them. :) #nbtfinale_

_Gon, just tell her you love her. Better yet: propose. OMG. CAN WE HAVE A LIVE PROPOSAL? #nbtfinale #gonriadne5eva_

_I’m calling it right now: This episode ends with Gon and Ariadne making out. #nbtfinale #gonriadne5eva_

_Joie de vivre. So that’s what they’re calling it these days, huh? #nbtfinale #gonriadne5eva_

Arthur glances at Ariadne to see if she’s also checking her phone, but Ariadne is watching the segment raptly. Sunny is being interviewed now. “I don’t really know how I ended up in the final three like this. I mean, I don’t think I’m one of the three best contestants on this show. It was just basically luck that this fell out the way it did. There’s no way I’m as good as Gon and Ariadne and I’m just looking forward to seeing them battle it out for the win, while I’m just thrilled to even be in the same room with them.” She’s smiling as she says it, and looks genuinely pleased with what she’s saying, not bitter or resentful at all, but still Arthur feels for her, because he remembers what it was like to think that it would be good enough to just be in the same room with the best people, even if you thought the whole time that you didn’t belong there. He knows that, in the beginning, when he first fell in love with Eames and it was a heady, desperate crush, it had a tinge of that to it: that Eames was too hot, too smart, too funny, too everything, to ever look at him, and if he could just have him once, he’d be astonished at his good fortune. 

He realizes now how little that was like love, in the beginning. He had barely even known Eames then. Being in love with Eames now is an entirely different creature than being in love with him then had been. He actually falls in love with Eames every single day he’s with him, with all of his crazy Eamesness, and that’s truer and fuller and a thousand times better than loving him on a pedestal. 

And he gets him the rest of his life now, and that was partly luck, partly good timing, but mostly just them, and how well they click together, and the fact that one night Arthur grabbed for Eames and Eames grabbed back, and that was just _them_ , their conscious choices. 

Arthur tweets, _Every single person in the final three totally deserves to be in the final three. I can’t wait to see their desks. #nbtfinale_ And then he adds, _Not to discount luck and random chance, but you should never sell yourself short: Where you are often has a lot to do with who you are and how hard you’ve worked. #nbtfinale_ It’s the kind of trite, love-yourself advice that he gave Sophie in Boston and at this rate he’s going to develop a ridiculously cheesy reputation, but he can’t help it. It took him years to stop selling himself short, years of having Eames chirp _You’re the best_ in such a refrain that it became the show’s catchphrase, and he’s just now made the connection of why Eames kept insisting on it: because Arthur was so terrible at insisting on it himself. 

The segment has ended, and Meredith is saying something about how the designers are going to go to retrieve their desks so they can be shown for the very first time in public, and how not even the judges have seen them. And then she asks how the judges feel about the upcoming desks, given the segment that’s just aired. 

Alec says, “I just want all of you to know, from the bottom of my _heart_ \--” hand in place—“how much you have all meant to me. I can only hope that I have taught you—”

Eames cuts him off by saying bluntly, “We’re very excited to see the desks.” Clearly Eames is done putting up with Alec, which Arthur appreciates. 

And Arthur echoes him with, “Yeah, very excited,” and then suddenly hears himself add, “But I just want to say that this is a phenomenal final three we have and you’re all amazing and remarkable and it’s anyone’s game here and Eames says this to me all the time so I’m going to pay it forward and make sure I say it to you, and I mean it the way Eames has always meant it: You’re the best. All of you. You are. No matter what happens next. You got here because you’re really, really good.” 

The audience applauds the end of his speech, and Arthur is pretty sure the tips of his ears go red in embarrassment at that. Sunny is wiping tears from her eyes. Ariadne and Gon aren’t quite to that point but they look emotional as well. Ariadne winks at him. 

Alec says, “Well, they can’t all be the best. One of them is going to be crowned the best at the end.” 

There is booing. Actual literal booing. Arthur bets their parents are part of it. And possibly Saito, too. 

“He was making a point, Alec,” Meredith snaps at him. Apparently even Meredith is over Alec. Arthur can just imagine what Twitter is saying. 

“Oh, I understand,” agrees Alec loftily. “He loves to hear the sound of his own voice.” 

And because Arthur is over everything now, too, he finds the nearest camera and looks into it with his best reaction face intact. Let the Internet have at it, he thinks. 

Meredith says, “When we come back, we get to see the desks, everyone!” 

The audience applauds them out to the commercial break, and Eames turns to him and smiles and says, “That was lovely. How are you so lovely?” and kisses his hair. 

“Thank you for telling me I’m the best,” Arthur responds earnestly. 

“It’s the truth, darling,” says Eames. 

“What was that speech?” Alec demands in a hiss, leaning over Eames so he can see Arthur. 

“Oh, sorry,” says Arthur. “Was that not in your plan for what we ought to do next on this show?” 

Alec scowls. 

And suddenly Arthur finds Ariadne practically flinging herself into her lap so she can hug him. 

“Best speech ever,” she tells him. 

“Probably not ever,” he manages from underneath the suffocating hug. 

“No, ever’s appropriate,” she says. “Eames?”

“Listen to your GPS,” Eames says. “You’re the best.” 

“You’re all ridiculous,” Arthur tells them, as Ariadne lets him go, grinning. 

“I’ve got to go be with my desk,” she says, and gives him a little wave as she and Gon head off together. 

Sunny hangs back to say to Arthur, “That was really nice of you. Thanks.” 

“I meant it,” Arthur says sincerely. 

“Sunny, I hope you listened to what I told you and tried to dig deep for the unique pain of _you_ ,” contributes Alec, even though literally no one has asked for his contribution. “We all need a break from all of this fairy lightness of the past few weeks.” 

Arthur’s about to tell Alec to shut up, except that Sunny does it for him. 

Actually what Sunny says—sweet Sunny who’s always been so shy and quiet—is “Shut the fuck up,” before she turns on her heel and matches away. 

Eames says in shocked delight, “Fuck, I hope some camera somewhere managed to catch _that_.”


	198. Chapter 198

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt as much pressure as the contestants trying to come up with these desk designs!! :-)

The contestants have drawn out of a hat to determine what order they should go, and Ariadne ends up first. Which means that Eames and Arthur find themselves standing in front of Ariadne’s desk, ready to judge. 

They have no idea where Alec is. 

“Fuck him,” Arthur says. “We’ll just judge without him.” 

“It’s not like he adds anything worthwhile,” says Eames, because it’s the last show and Arthur thinks maybe they’re being a little reckless in just how visible their over-Alec-ness is. 

The live audience near enough to have heard Eames laughs and gives him scattered applause. Eames flourishes a hand dramatically to acknowledge the audience reaction. 

Which is when Alec arrives on the stage on a Segway that has been bedazzled with a giant scarlet A. He’s shed his red suit and his black sequined fedora in favor of what looks like a velvet suit that has an actual, bona fide ermine collar. His fedora is unadorned, and Arthur would say that’s because that suit needs no further adornment but it seems like uncharacteristic reserve coming from Alec. There is a part of Arthur that genuinely wants to admire Alec’s sartorial daring, but most of him is cringing and outwardly he’s just staring open-mouthed. Arthur thinks there’s a possibility that his gif reaction shots are going to break the Internet tonight but he just can’t help it. 

Eames says, “Are you fucking serious right now? What the _fuck_ do you need a Segway for?” 

“Eames, segues are the life’s blood of a good television show host,” says Alec. “You must know how to constantly segue the tangent of a guest back to the actual point.” 

“It’s a pun,” Arthur realizes. “It’s a fucking pun.” 

“Unfortunate,” Eames remarks. “The only thing Arthur hates more than fedoras is puns.” 

“You realize you look like Hester Prynne,” Arthur says. “Was that intentional?” 

“Who?” asks Alec blankly. 

“Forget it,” Arthur sighs. “When are we back from commercial?” 

“Oh, we’ve been back,” says Meredith cheerfully. 

Of course. That seems like a typical Mal move. 

Arthur turns to Ariadne and says, “Why don’t you tell us about your desk?” 

And then Alec says, “Wait. Before we do that—ow.” Alec startles, jerking his hands off the handles of the Segway reflexively. “It shocked me!” he complains petulantly, looking betrayed. 

“Tell us about your desk,” Arthur tells Ariadne firmly. 

“So,” says Ariadne, and then instead of saying anything further steps aside with a flourish. 

The desk is a rich ebony wood and Arthur loves it. It looks sophisticated and expensive, and Arthur is enough of a snob to like stuff like that. But it’s also playful. The chair, for instance, is a massage chair. 

“You’ve been sitting at your desk all day, the small of your back might need some attention,” Ariadne explains. The desk also has a built-in adjustable footrest that can be placed at the height and place preferred by the user, as Ariadne demonstrates. “I’m short,” Ariadne says, “and desks are never made for short people. Plus, you can also detach the footrest’s cushion and use it as a pillow, in case you want to nap under your desk.” 

“This is my kind of desk,” remarks Eames. 

The desk has lots of drawers and cubbyholes, but it also has a tiny built-in fridge, and one of the drawers turns out to be a silverware drawer with room for some china storage, and Ariadne extends a cutting board out from the side. 

“It’s a kitchen,” notes Eames, sounding amused. “You have created a little tiny kitchen desk.”

“I was trying to design a desk that was practical in its playfulness, because desks are at hear one of the most practical-minded pieces of furniture we have. It’s supposed to be designed to enable you to be productive, right? Well, when I’m working,” Ariadne says, “I always get distracted by the thought that I could go to the kitchen and get a snack. This desk eliminates that temptation. It’s also got a built-in, state-of-the-art sound system, so you can chair-dance while you work, which is not only fun but also healthy, right? And…” Ariadne leans forward and flicks a switch and the cubbyholes at the front of the desk illuminate. “You can shed some light on what you’re working on, and then…” Ariadne flicks another switch, and the lights start multi-colored flashing. “Disco desk!” Ariadne exclaims. 

“Disco desk!” repeats Eames, sounding impressed and astonished. “I want a disco desk! Darling, we could have a party every time I work. Arthur loves dancing, you know,” he tells Ariadne. 

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen something to that effect,” Ariadne replies, flashing an impish smile at Arthur. 

Arthur chooses to ignore that. He says, “I love the juxtaposition of this really serious dark wood with disco lights.” 

“I don’t get it,” Alec says. “But then, I have never understood the point of your designs and would have eliminated you last episode.”

“It’s okay,” Ariadne says. “I think my designs only appeal to people with senses of humor.” 

“Let’s move on to Sunny’s desk!” announces Meredith, stepping in before that can develop further. “But first, let’s give a round of applause to Ariadne.” 

Ariadne looks sheepish about the applause and gives a cute little fake curtsey, and Arthur and Eames both hug her. 

Arthur murmurs, “Great job.” 

Ariadne says back happily, “And I didn’t even throw up!”


	199. Chapter 199

Arthur could have predicted Sunny’s desk would be some variation of white, because Sunny is clearly partial to white. It’s actually a soft cream, not as harsh as white would have been, and it’s a very light, airy, delicate desk that looks as if it had been spun out of gossamer. In reality, it’s wood, but she’s carved it so intensely, with swirling cutouts of decoration, that it doesn’t look quite look wood anymore. And she’s dotted some of the grooves with some sort of silver sparkle that adds to the ethereal quality. 

It’s an impressive feat to make something so clearly labor intensive look so effortlessly meringue-fluffy, and the silhouette of the desk has an interesting effect, and Arthur likes it, but the problem with the desk is its essential lack of practicality. Sunny’s discovered her aesthetic these last few challenges but it’s caused her to become a little unmoored from practicality, Arthur thinks. He imagines that this is what Eames’s designs were like in Eames’s very earliest days. Eames is still less concerned with practicality than a normal person might be, but the truth is he tends to find a way to make his more out-there designs _function_. And that’s where Sunny’s design falls short for Arthur. 

Probably being fatefully mentored by Alec during the closet challenge hadn’t helped with this situation, thinks Arthur. At any rate, Arthur likes Sunny’s designs a lot but he thinks that his first piece of advice to her would have been to keep purpose in mind. 

Eames says in amazement, “This is an incredible and masterful and magnificent feat of woodworking. Did you do all of this?” 

“Some of it,” Sunny says modestly. “But, you know, they let us have carpenters and stuff so I just kind of designed and told them what I wanted.” 

“You have an eye for how to make something really striking as delicately as possible,” Eames tells her. “That’s a good thing. I love it.” 

“I only wish you had used that eye to the advantage of something truly profound and meaningful,” reports Alec sadly, gazing at the desk. And then: “Ow! Damn it! This thing keeps shocking me!” He glares balefully at his Segway. 

“You could get off of it,” suggests Eames. 

Alec glares balefully at Eames.

Arthur gets them back on track. “It’s a desk. Sunny was asked to design a desk, and she designed a desk.” 

“Oh, I’m aware,” Alec says, watching his Segway suspiciously. “But what does this desk _say_? It doesn’t say anything. It just sits there saying, ‘Oh, look, I’m a desk.’ _Ow! Really? Fucking damn it!_ ”

“I thought the desk wasn’t saying anything,” says Eames blandly, as if Alec is not having some sort of meltdown on his Segway. “But if the desk’s saying, ‘Oh, look, I’m a desk,’ then it _is_ saying something. It’s saying it’s a desk. And that in and of itself is valuable. You wouldn’t want a desk to say it’s a clock. What good would that do anyone? I know that I personally prefer my furnishings to be honest and truthful and trustworthy. If they’re going to say something, it had better be the truth, by God. Otherwise, I would prefer for them to just shut up.” 

Alec looks too flustered, whether by the sheer committed over-the-top-ness of Eames’s speech or by his rogue Segway, to say anything. 

So Arthur decides to take advantage of Alec’s momentary shut-up-ness. He says, “I like the idea, and it’s terribly beautiful, but you’ve only got one drawer here, and it’s very shallow and basically only good for a couple of pieces of paper and maybe a pen. That’s of concern to me. I think a desk should have storage space.” 

“I thought about that,” says Sunny, “but most offices are going paperless these days.” 

“But there’s all sorts of other stuff you could store in a desk,” Arthur says. “People might store shoes, for instance, after commuting. Or snacks,” he adds, thinking of Ariadne’s desk. 

“Or bear traps,” Alec contributes wisely. 

If that is fucking connected to the fucking bear-with-rum story, Arthur doesn’t want to hear it, so he says hastily, “Things like that. You just might want to consider more storage for a desk. But I can see why you left it as you did, because it presents a beautiful silhouette.” 

“Sometimes,” Sunny says wistfully, “practicality can just make things _so_ ugly.” 

“Ah,” says Eames. “But that’s when it becomes your job to make it beautiful. There are certain things that cannot be changed, apparently. Like gravity. It is our job to rail against the practical, but it is also our job to make anything we cannot change into something so beautiful that no one ever notices we didn’t get our way.” 

Arthur thinks how gorgeously accurate this speech is when it comes to Eames’s design process. Yes, he’s always got his head in the clouds at the beginning but once the laws of physics refuse to yield, he comes back down to Earth and creates something so beautiful that Arthur always forgets that Eames’s vision had been shortchanged, because Arthur can never picture anything more perfect or lovely than what Eames ends up with. Arthur imagines the constant compromising of vision is tough on Eames—it’s always tough on Arthur’s clients, after all—but Eames finds his peace with what he is able to get. That’s Eames in an alluring nutshell, really: He will fight hard for what he wants, but he also manages to find happiness with what he gets. 

“That is such a beautiful thing to say,” says Sunny, sounding awestruck. 

“Exactly,” interjects Alec, carefully holding his arms aloft in an effort to keep his Segway from shocking him. “Exactly what Eames says. That’s what I always say all the time, it’s true.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

Eames spares Alec a sardonic glance before saying, “My only issue is that it’s so beautiful I’m afraid I’d crush it if I sat at it.” 

“Oh, no, it should hold you,” Sunny says earnestly. 

Eames sits gingerly on the little chair, and it does hold him but it looks like doll furniture under his bulk. 

“Hmm,” Sunny says. “Maybe I should think more of male proportions when I design.” 

Eames shrugs and says, “Mostly everything is designed for male proportions. You stick to the proportions you want and let the men adjust.” 

“Men are bad at adjusting,” says Sunny, with a little smile. 

Eames and Arthur both chuckle a little. 

Alec says, “We are good at adjusting when the adjustment is _good_. We are bad at adjusting for no good reason. If there is no reason for furniture to be designed for women, then why should men adjust to it?” 

Arthur stares at Alec before managing, “You can’t think of any reason why furniture could be designed for women?” 

Alec says, “They can very easily just adjust to the furniture designed for men. As they have been doing all along.” The Segway jerks forward suddenly, nearly throwing Alec off. Alec curses roundly, grabbing on and getting shocked for his trouble. 

“We either need to move on,” remarks Eames, “or we need to have a very serious discussion about feminism.” 

“I feel like we need fucking both,” says Arthur.


	200. Chapter 200

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the birthday wishes! You made this such a special day! :-)

Gon brings up the rear of the contestants, and he says nervously, as his desk is about to be unveiled, “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to be last.” 

“It probably depends on what sort of desk you made,” Arthur replies, and wonders if he sounds too sarcastic, but, well, it _does_. 

And the remark seems to relax Gon, who gives him a smile and says, “Right. Yeah. Of course. It all depends on the desk.” 

“And America,” says Eames. 

“And America,” agrees Gon. 

“Not England,” says Eames. “Not that I really want to get into that, because it’s a sore subject.” 

“God save the Queen!” shouts a voice from the studio audience. Who sounds suspiciously like Albert to Arthur. 

“Exactly,” Eames says gravely, as if he goes around worrying about the Queen’s health all the time. 

“I have never even heard you talk about the Queen before,” Arthur points out. 

“Shh,” Eames says to him. “They won’t let me back in the country if they find out I don’t talk about the Queen at least once a day. It’s British law.” 

“Well,” deadpans Arthur, “as a potential viscount, I’m sure you’ll find a way around that.” 

“Yes,” Eames says, and turns to Gon. “I’m a potential viscount. Have you heard that?” 

“I don’t know what is,” says Gon. 

“What’s it sound like?” asks Eames. 

“A type of venereal disease?” Gon guesses uncertainly. And then, as Eames gapes at him, “Sorry, should I not have said that on live television? Are we allowed to mention venereal diseases on television?” 

“You think what’s problematic is U.S. censorship laws and not the fact that you just accused me of having a venereal disease?” demands Eames. 

“Well, you know, I don’t know, it was just a guess,” Gon tries to defend himself. 

“It was a good guess,” Arthur assures him. 

“Hey!” protests Eames. 

“Maybe we should judge your desk now,” suggests Arthur. 

“What the hell is happening over there?” asks Gon. 

“Over there” turns out to be over in the chat-show set-up where they had been with Meredith before the judging started. Alec’s Segway is turning itself in circles around the chairs and coffee tables, sometimes colliding with them. 

“This thing is fucking possessed,” Alec shouts to them. 

“Get off the bloody thing,” Eames shouts back. 

“I constantly think that I must be dreaming this show,” remarks Arthur. 

“If this is some kind of mass hallucination,” comments Gon, “the drugs are really good and I hope we eventually remember where we bought them from.” 

Eames speaks into the nearest camera. “If you had ‘Alec rides possessed Segway’ on your _Next Big Thing_ bingo card, congratulations.” 

“If you had ‘Alec rides possessed Segway’ on your _Next Big Thing_ bingo card,” says Arthur, “I think you should play the lottery, because today is clearly your lucky day. We’re judging Gon now,” announces Arthur, raising his voice so that Alec can hear him over the chaos of his misbehaving Segway. 

“But I’ve got to—” begins Alec, and then the Segway heads itself off-stage. 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Eames assures everyone. 

There’s the sound of a crash off-stage. And Mal shouting in French. 

“Let’s move on,” suggests Arthur, because he’s nothing if not fucking professional and he’s not going to let crazy Alec and his lunatic Segway idea get in the way of Gon’s moment. “Tell us about your desk.” 

“I wanted to try to create this blend of traditional and creative and also me,” Gon says. “Kind of like you told me to do with the closet challenge, Arthur. And this is what I came up with.” 

His desk is presented with a flourish, and it’s composed of a seamless piece of bright, cheerful blue Lucite. The desk is streamlined in composition, all rounded corners meeting zig-zagging angles, and the thing that fascinates Arthur is how translucent it is. From the top of the desk, you can look down on the contents of the drawers underneath. And from the side of the desk, as well. There is one drawer constructed of a frosted glass that is opaque enough to provide some privacy, but otherwise the contents of the desk are pretty much on display. Part of Arthur thinks this much transparency would make him uncomfortable. 

And Gon says, “The idea here is to really make people think about how much we _hide_. Like, _why_ are our desks big wooden bohemoths for us to hide in? Why can’t we make ourselves more transparent? I don’t know, it’s, like, the desk as a metaphor for the person, or something stupid like that.” Gon looks almost embarrassed by this explanation. 

But Arthur is charmed by it. He thinks of how much about himself was kept hidden, and how Eames turned him transparent, and how that changed his life. 

Eames beats Arthur to an appreciation of the desk by saying, “That’s such a lovely sentiment.” 

Gon looks even more embarrassed. He says, “Also, blue is a color that’s supposed to inspire productivity.” 

Eames says, “Darling, say something about how impractical a see-through desk is.” 

“Well,” Arthur says, “I think the impracticality speaks for itself, so I’d rather just say: The desk as a metaphor for the person. I think Misty Rainbow would approve.”


	201. Chapter 201

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know what time it is? It is actually for real FINALE VOTING TIME. You can vote on LJ and on Tumblr (yes, you can vote both places if you want, and I'll count your vote twice). 
> 
> LJ: http://earlgreytea68.livejournal.com/504348.html
> 
> Tumblr: http://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/121157508661/somehow-someway-we-have-actually-managed-to-defy
> 
> Have fun!

Meredith is busy explaining to America how the voting works. 

Arthur and Eames are busy being subjected to a long description of how the Segway tried to kill Alec and Alec knows that sometimes evil comes for the truth-tellers and he does hope that Eames and Arthur appreciate how much he has livened up their boring show, which had been, he says, “a total snoozefest.” 

“A snoozefest,” echoes Eames. “Is that a festival for snoozing? Like, a celebration of sleep? Because that sounds amazing and I think I support that.” 

“It isn’t supposed to be a _good_ thing,” complains Alec petulantly. Someone is wrapping Alec’s wrist with a bandage but Arthur highly doubts it’s a medic. Arthur suspects it’s some intern Mal has roped into the job. Mostly because Arthur suspects Alec isn’t anything close to actually physically hurt. “This is totally going to ruin my next wardrobe change,” Alec says. 

“Wardrobe change?” echoes Eames. “You were going to do a wardrobe change?” 

“I have _two_ wardrobe changes planned,” Alec sniffs. “Don’t you?” Alec looks disdainfully at Arthur. “And you call yourself a fashion plate. Amateur.” 

“I don’t call myself a fashion plate,” says Arthur. 

“Two wardrobe changes?” says Eames. “There’s only, like, half an hour of the show left.” 

“Yes, and speaking of,” says Mal, wandering over, still smoking, “this is an important half an hour, in which you answer the questions of your adoring public. Or something. Go.” She waves with her cigarette, then drifts off again. 

Alec whines, “I don’t think she’s taking this show seriously anymore.” 

Eames snorts. “Alec, I’ve got news for you: We don’t have a serious show.” 

“Speak for yourself,” snaps Alec. “Simply because you have no pride of creation—”

“No pride of creation?” Eames retorts, sounding offended. 

Arthur tries to avoid an argument by saying, “Alec, you seem gravely injured. There’s a possibility you’re too unwell to do the rest of the show.” 

“I’m fine,” Alec says, and wrenches his hand away from the bandaging intern, who looks like he isn’t sure what to do. 

Julia comes over and says cheerfully, “Makeup check! You guys look good,” she assures Eames and Arthur, and turns to Alec and says, “Alec, you look like yourself.” Then she breezes away, throwing a wink at Eames and Arthur over her shoulder. 

Arthur thinks how Julia clearly just came over to fuck with Alec and how he understands why Paul is pursuing a relationship with her. 

Meredith comes over and says anxiously, “Guys? Are we going to, like, do the rest of the show now?” 

“We’re absolutely going to do the rest of the show,” says Arthur. “Because Eames and I are fucking professionals who are fucking spectacular at our jobs and we’re going to go and do them. I have no fucking idea what Alec plans to do, though. Let’s go,” he says to Eames, and nods toward the stage. 

Behind them, he can hear Alec explaining to Meredith, “I need a few more minutes, I have some serious injuries that must be attended to.” 

Eames hisses at him, “That was _fucking hot_.”

“Uh-huh,” agrees Arthur, and very deliberately undoes the top button of his waistcoat. 

Eames stares at it. 

Arthur says, “Let’s do this thing.” Then pauses and adds, “By this thing, I mean ‘the show.’”

“Other things are getting done, darling, basically as soon as this show is over,” says Eames, and waggles his eyebrows at him. 

Arthur winks and takes his seat.


	202. Chapter 202

The rest of the contestants come onto the show for the recap Q&A portion while America votes, so there are a lot more people on the stage when Arthur and Eames get back. It’s good to see all of them, even the weird ones; Arthur feels inexplicably fond of even the infamous hospital coffee shop design at the moment. 

Meredith comes onto the stage and says, “Alec won’t be joining us for a little while.” 

“Oh,” Ariadne says brightly. “That means Misty Rainbow can come join us instead. Misty Rainbow refuses to share a stage with him,” she explains to Arthur and Eames. 

“I don’t blame her,” remarks Eames. 

“But if he’s not going to be here, then she can come on stage, right?” says Ariadne. 

“We’re coming back from commercial, like, right now,” Meredith frets. 

“Ari,” Arthur says, “go and get Misty Rainbow. She deserves to have her last word here.” 

Ariadne nods and darts off the set. 

Meredith says, “This is crazy. I don’t think this network should do any more live television.” 

“Not with Alec Hart involved,” says one of the eliminated contestants. One eliminated so early that Arthur can’t remember his name but does recognize him as hospital coffee shop guy. He definitely redeems himself a little bit for recognizing Alec Hart’s crazy on even the limited involvement he’d had with him. 

They’re counting them in from commercial, and Meredith looks a little flustered but she welcomes the television audience back and starts introducing all of the contestants who have now joined them. During the warm applause that greets each name, Arthur scrolls through his Twitter. There’s a lot of tweets dealing with the voting now going on, but Arthur doesn’t want to spoil himself on that front by even getting a sense of who’s ahead. Instead he tries to focus on the more substantive tweets. There’s general bewilderment about the Segway at the beginning, rage and fury over Alec’s sexist comments, confusion about Alec’s continued shocking at the hands of the Segway, and then, finally, a lot of tweets that say things like, _HOW IS THIS SHOW REAL? I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS SHOW IS REAL. #nbtfinale_ and _Did Alec Hart just die off-stage? And no one even blinked?? I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH. #nbtfinale_

And, Arthur realizes, one tweet that says, _Is the top button on Arthur’s vest unbuttoned now? #nbtfinale_. With a follow-up tweet that says, _I think there’s something up with his cufflink situation, too. #nbtfinale_ Other fans start picking up on it. 

_Is Arthur slowly stripping in front of us? WHAT IS HAPPENING??? #nbtfinale_

_I like to believe that Arthur’s clothing feels for us and is just slowly disrobing itself around him. #nbtfinale #arthursclothes4everything_

_I bet this is some kind of sex club code. #nbtfinale #pagingsebastianstan #arthurssexclub_

Arthur wonders if his-- _entirely fictitious_ \--sex club is now a popular hashtag on Twitter, and clicks on the hashtag. His phone screen fills with porn, so probably checking a hashtag with the word “sex club” was a bad idea. And, of course, his phone freezes at that moment. 

Eames glances over at him, obviously sees what’s on his phone, and lifts an amused eyebrow at him. 

Arthur sticks his phone back into his pocket, as Eames leans over to murmur into his ear, “Are you bored, darling? What can I do to fix that?” 

“Not bored,” Arthur replies, and then tips his tie ever so slightly askew. 

Eames makes a lovely, strangled, bitten-down sound. 

Ariadne practically comes crashing her way back onto the stage, dragging Misty Rainbow in tow. Misty Rainbow looks apprehensive, until she glances over at the judges’ seats and confirms that Alec’s not there. Meanwhile, the live studio audience is cheering wildly at her appearance. 

“Misty Rainbow,” gasps Ariadne, apparently out-of-breath from running, “totally deserves to talk about her time on the show. Right now.” 

“Of course,” Meredith says, fake smile firmly in place, even though her teeth look clenched together over what a mess this whole situation is. “Misty Rainbow, do you have any final words on your time at _Next Big Thing_?” 

Misty Rainbow looks at Arthur and Eames. “I learned a lot from you two. I know our visions didn’t always agree, but I respect our divergent opinions. Arthur, you, especially, really opened my eyes to the various interpretations a design can be subject to, and I will be eternally grateful for that.” 

Arthur feels a little bit unexpectedly overwhelmed by the sentiment. He’s not entirely sure how he’s even supposed to respond to something like that. 

Luckily, Misty Rainbow doesn’t really give him time to respond. She just goes on, “But Alec Hart is an asshole and he’s got a tiny dick, too.” 

The live studio audience goes crazy. 

Misty Rainbow finishes, “And I will not share space with someone like Alec Hart anymore. We should all remember that we are ourselves full and whole and complete. We don’t need people in our lives who are going to detract from that. Keeping people like Alec Hart in our lives does nothing but poison us, and I will not let his toxic presence corrupt my heart and soul. We must all learn to listen to our own quiet.” And with that, Misty Rainbow turns on her heel and marches off of the stage. 

The studio audience gives her another standing ovation. 

Arthur says to Eames, “Hear that? You should listen to your own quiet, Mr. In-Love-with-the-Sound-of-My-Own-Voice.” 

“The thing is,” replies Eames, “when I listen to my quiet, it’s always telling me to talk.”


	203. Chapter 203

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY THE Q&A STARTS. 
> 
> AND WILL PROBABLY GO ON INDEFINITELY. 
> 
> BECAUSE IT'S THIS FIC THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AND THAT'S HOW THIS FIC GOES.

When Misty Rainbow’s standing ovation finally dies down, Meredith explains, “You have therefore noticed that Alec Hart currently isn’t with us. Alec suffered some unfortunate injuries as a result of his defective Segway. He’ll be rejoining us as soon as they are addressed. In the meantime, while the voting goes on to finally determine who will win _Next Big Thing_ , we’ve invited you to submit your questions for the contestants and the judges, and we’re going to start answering some, starting with this one, which I think is very apropos given everything that’s transpired on this show so far. Alltoseek asks, ‘Is this show for real? I mean an actual unscripted reality show? Cuz all the drama with Alec being Eames’ ex and Arthur hitting him and the knee - I mean seriously is this show for real? Cuz I bet it’s made up.’” Meredith finishes reading the question and looks at all of them expectantly. “Well? What would you say?” 

“It’s real,” say several of the contestants at once. 

Arthur adds, “It is _distressingly_ real.” 

Meredith grins and says, “One thing we all know is real, and that’s the appeal of a good Arthur climbing shot, right?” 

The studio audience applauds. So does Eames. Who throws in a wolf whistle for good measure. 

Arthur, appalled that now he is doubtless blushing on national television, hisses at him, “Shh.”

Eames does the opposite of shushing and says, “Honestly, I require him to climb things in front of me all the time. We haven’t any stairs in the house, only ladders so I can watch him come up and down. You might call me impractical, I call me dedicated to an excellent cause.” 

“You are definitely impractical,” says Arthur, and doesn’t even bother to deal with the rest of it. 

Meredith is still grinning as she says, “Here, for your viewing pleasure, audience, are all of Arthur’s requisite climbing shots from the series. Get your remote control out and hit record right now so you can be sure to save this for posterity. Ready? Brace yourself.” 

On-screen flashes a quick montage of Arthur’s backside in a variety of delicious suits as he ascends or descends things. And the song in the background is _I’m Too Sexy_ because _of course_ it is. 

The whole montage gets a rapturous reception from the audience and Arthur feels like he’s blushing even harder. He manages to say to Meredith over the dying hubbub, “I’m tremendously flattered, really, but it’s mainly Giacomo’s tailoring that makes it look that good.”

Eames leans over so he can be in Arthur’s camera space. “No, it’s not,” he says. “Take it from me.” 

Arthur pushes Eames away playfully and says, “Let’s ask questions that are not about my body parts.” 

“Oh, darn,” says Meredith, with an exaggerated pout, and pretends to flip through her index cards fruitlessly. 

The audience laughs at the joke. 

Eames says, “Before you ask: dimples.” 

“That could be the answer to any number of questions,” Arthur points out, aware that he’s dimpling in response, because it’s practically fucking Pavlovian at this point. 

“True, but I was thinking in particular of the question ‘What’s your favorite part of Arthur’s body?’”

The studio audience _awwwww_ s. 

Eames looks out at them and says, “You expected me to say something dirty, didn’t you? Shame on all of you,” to appreciative laughter. 

Meredith says, “Were his dimples what you first fell in love with about him?”

“No, that was his arse,” says Eames frankly. “I mean, you’ve all seen his arse,” and gestures to the screen that had just played a montage of it. 

“Moving on,” Arthur says. 

Meredith grins and relents, “Okay, okay, here’s a serious question.” 

Arthur wonders if Meredith’s definition of “serious question” is similar to Eames’s. 

But before Meredith gets to read the serious question, a trumpet fanfare sounds. 

Sunny complains, “What the fuck,” and when it’s _Sunny_ complaining like that, you know it’s a bad situation, thinks Arthur. 

Alec comes limping dramatically onto the stage. He’s got an arm slung around the intern for support. The intern looks miserable at being pressed into service this way. And Arthur would bet a lot of money that Alec can totally walk on his own and this is all an elaborate show. _Any time now_ , Arthur thinks about Mal and Saito’s plan. _Any time now would be perfect._

And then Arthur finally takes in what Alec is wearing. It’s a cape. A fucking _bedazzled_ cape. And a bedazzled fedora to top it all off. The bedazzling is in the shape of many tiny A’s surrounded by many tiny hearts. 

Arthur knows his jaw has dropped open because Eames reaches out a finger to close it. 

Arthur turns a pained look on Eames, hoping to communicate how horrible an offense against fashion Alec’s outfit is. Because sometimes Eames can’t tell. 

Eames looks deeply amused and Arthur can see why he would be deeply amused _but still_. 

“He’s either in love with himself or with you,” Eames murmurs into Arthur’s ear. 

Arthur makes an actual sound of pain at that. 

“You don’t think he’s naked under the cape, do you?” Eames continues, because apparently what he wants is for Arthur to _actually die_ over the horrible things he is saying. 

Alec is waving a hand to all of them, as if to tell them to stay seated and not help him, even though none of them have made a move to help him. As the intern helps him into his seat, Alec says, “Thank you. Thank you so much. Can we have a round of applause for the intern, Cedric?” 

“Derek,” hisses the intern. “My name is Derek.” 

Alec ignores him and says into the audience’s obedient but perplexed scattered applause, “As you may have realized, I suffered some injuries because of the malfunctioning of my Segway but I have decided to work through them because I recognize the importance of this episode and I do not want to disappoint any of you viewers, here in the studio with us or at home. Nor did I want to miss the final chapter in the competition for these contestants who I have come to love so dearly.” Alec lays a hand over his heart. 

Eames says, “Let’s get back to the questions, Meredith.” 

Meredith says, “Actually, it’s time for a commercial break.” 

Alec groans very dramatically as the show goes to commercial, as if all of his injuries are causing him a great deal of pain. 

Arthur rolls his eyes.


	204. Chapter 204

Julia comes scurrying out to do their makeup during the commercial. But really she seems to be there to gossip, because not much makeup is getting done.

“He tried to make me use makeup to give him a black eye,” she confides. “Can you believe it?” 

“Can I believe it?” echoes Arthur. “Yes, I can one hundred percent believe it.” 

“I can one hundred thousand percent believe it,” says Eames. 

“That’s not how percentages work,” Arthur tells him. 

Eames shrugs. “Maths was never my strong suit.” 

Julia says, “You guys are killing it, there’s not much more of the show to go, and Mal’s already broken out the vodka backstage.” 

“Not champagne?” Eames says.

“Mal said this is a show that deserves vodka.” 

“This is a show that deserves fucking Russian mobsters,” mutters Arthur. 

“Not long now, Arthur,” says Julia sunnily. 

“You’re so cheerful because you’re already drunk,” Arthur accuses. 

“See you!” sing-songs Julia, and leaves. 

Alec shouts after her, “Julia! Julia! You didn’t do my makeup! God, she is so incompetent.” 

They start to be counted in from commercial, Alec still bitching about Julia’s lack of dedication to him. 

And then Meredith says, “Okay, welcome back! Hopefully you are still voting, America! Remember, here’s a refresher on the desks, in case you forgot.” A little montage of Ariadne, Sunny, and Gon with their respective desks plays on the screen, and then it’s back to Meredith. “In the meantime, we are taking your questions, so tweet at us! fangirl4life92 says, ‘Everyone’s style is so beautiful and unique and I was wondering what inspired each of you to become a designer in the first place?’ Ladyprydian seconds that: ‘What made you get into interior design?’”

The contestants all look at each other and say things like, “Good question.” 

It’s Gon who answers first, “I really like the usefulness of it. You get to design and be artistic but someone has to use your room afterward, in a way unlike other pieces of art you might make.”

Ariadne says, “I went into it because I wanted people to have more fun with their houses and the rooms in them, and by extension more fun in life.” 

Scott says, “I went into it because I think I confused it with product design,” and gets a laugh. 

Meredith laughs as well and then says, “Eames and Alec? Any thoughts as to why you went into interior design?” 

“Definitely the creativity, like Gon says,” says Eames. “I really wanted to be an artist and tried a lot of different mediums but design ended up being the way I felt most comfortable expressing myself.” 

“I went into interior design to try to help others,” says Alec solemnly. “It had nothing to do with me or whether or not I enjoyed it, I simply knew that I had an obligation to help those in need.” 

Arthur looks at the contestants, who are all so past the point of caring that they’re either staring or actively rolling their eyes. 

Meredith just says, “Okay, next question. Scribblscrabbl wants the contestants to talk about the challenges: ‘What was the most difficult challenge for you? The easiest? Your favorite challenge? The challenge that made you think, in retrospect, oh my god what was I thinking?’”

“The answer to most difficult is ‘all of them,’” says Scott, and earns himself a laugh. “Although I think I would have rocked this desk challenge!” 

Sunny says, “I feel like I liked the challenges more and more as I went along. But I still wonder what I was thinking for the closet challenge.” 

Arthur has a pretty good idea what Sunny was thinking, and it had everything to do with Alec Hart. 

Trizz says, “I think for many of us our ‘what was I thinking’ challenges are probably the challenges where we were eliminated,” and the eliminated contestants nod in agreement. 

Ariadne says, “I actually found this desk one the most difficult challenge, because I like to work with whole rooms, with more cohesive visions. And I found the small space challenge the easiest because I’ve lived in lots of small spaces and borrowed a lot of my ideas from them. My favorite challenge was probably the secret room challenge, though, just for how fun it was.” 

Gon says, “I hated the paint challenge. I thought that was so hard. But I really loved the closet challenge, I think I learned a lot from that.” 

Eames beams at Arthur as if that was all Arthur’s doing. 

Arthur knows he’s blushing again. 

Alec begins, “Actually—”

And Meredith says, “Another quick commercial break now! Keep voting, America!”


	205. Chapter 205

To say that Alec is annoyed would be to put it mildly. “I had things to say!” he protests at Meredith. “I had important things to say about the challenges!”

“But that wasn’t a question about us,” says Eames, much more reasonably than Arthur would have managed at this point. “That was a question for the contestants. So the contestants answered it. That was one of those moments, Alec, when your voice was entirely unnecessary. You know those moments, Alec? No, silly me, of course you don’t.” 

Arthur peers off into the bright lights, hoping desperately to see the audience beyond, to catch a glimpse of Saito, so that he can raise his eyebrows meaningfully in an _Any fucking time now_ gesture. 

“I will not be silenced by—Who are you?” says Alec. 

At this exclamation, Arthur glances over at Alec without interest, and then abruptly gets interested, because Saito is on the stage. Eames is just gaping at him, so Arthur assumes that Saito just magically materialized there, because that seems Saito-ish. 

Saito smiles down at Alec. Well. He curves his lips upward. To call it a smile would not communicate the fact that it is fucking terrifying. 

Saito says, “Hello, Mr. Hanover.” 

Alec’s face goes as white as a sheet. 

Eames is still staring. Arthur leans forward and nudges his mouth closed with a finger, just to repay the favor. 

Alec seems to recover enough to shriek, “Mal! Mal, we need security—”

Saito tsks at him and says, “This will do you no good, Mr. Hanover.” 

“Stop calling me that,” commands Alec desperately. 

“There is an expression,” continues Saito calmly. “It begins: ‘Give a man enough rope.’ Do you know that expression, Mr. Hanover?”

“Security!” shouts Alec. 

“I shall assume you know that expression, and that you know how it ends. Here is your rope, Mr. Hanover. Choose your future course wisely.” 

Alec says, wild-eyed, “What rope? I don’t see any rope.” 

“It’s metaphorical rope,” says Saito. “You see, I am letting you stay on this stage right now.” 

“You can’t—you can’t kick me off the stage,” says Alec, but the bluster has lost some of its confidence. 

Saito smiles again. 

Then Saito turns to Meredith, who has also been witnessing the exchange with wide eyes, and says, “Allow me to commend you on your beautiful hosting job.” 

“Oh,” Meredith manages. “Thanks.” 

Saito turns to the contestants and says gravely, “And good luck to all of you on your future endeavors. I hope for all of you long, triumphant, successful careers.” 

And then Saito walks off the stage, without saying anything to Eames and Arthur. 

Meredith says, a bit shakily, “Who was that?” 

Alec says, “A _trespasser_. He should have been _arrested_ ,” although he also sounds a bit shaky. 

Ariadne says, “Whoever that was, he seems like he has money and might be willing to offer me a job, so I’m a fan.” 

Eames exchanges a dazed look with Arthur. 

Alec stands abruptly and says, “I must go,” and leaves the stage quickly, without any evident limp. 

Eames says in a low voice, for Arthur’s benefit only, “What the fuck was up with the ‘Hanover’ thing?” 

“Did he change his name to go on television?” asks Arthur. 

“That’s hardly an interesting or unusual thing, and the Hanover thing freaked Alec the fuck out. I think maybe he was a criminal in another life. Something really bad. He’s probably fleeing from the authorities right now. He’ll probably never be heard from again.” 

“Being a world-class criminal who evades capture by setting up a whole new life requires cleverness,” drawls Arthur. “That’s not Alec.” 

“Maybe he’s a spy,” suggests Eames. 

Arthur gives him a look. “A spy? On national television? Not exactly low-profile.” 

“Well, as you’ve said, he’s not a very clever spy.” 

“He almost died because his scarf caught on fire,” points out Arthur, “and you think he knows how to handle firearms?” 

“He didn’t almost die,” Eames says. “It was really minor. No big deal at all.” 

“He’s not a spy, Eames.” 

“Well, he’s _something_. You don’t just react that way to _nothing_.” 

“Honestly, Eames?” sighs Arthur, as they start to get counted back in from commercial. “If you’re Alec, you react completely illogically to all things at all times.”


	206. Chapter 206

“Welcome back!” says Meredith brightly, and Alec’s not back but nobody seems concerned and Arthur’s fine if he decides not to come back at all. “We’re still answering your questions so get on Twitter and tweet at us, and while you’re there, be sure to vote, too! For now, we’ve got a question from Aeristctle: ‘What on this show are you most proud of? What was the most emotional-slash-moving moment on the show for you?’”

Scott is the first to answer. He says, “Making it on the show at all,” and there’s a murmur of assent from the rest of them. He continues, “I mean, you apply to be on something like this, you never think you’re going to actually make it. Everything about this was just such an astonishing experience. And, frankly, I was proud every time I finished a challenge!” 

There’s appreciative laughter. 

“And that was always an emotional moment, too,” notes Jess. “Finishing a challenge.” 

“If by ‘emotional’ you mean ‘deserving of lots of alcohol,’” adds Trizz jokingly. 

“Always my definition of emotional,” deadpans Jess. 

Meredith, smiling, turns to Eames and Arthur. “What would you say? What are you most proud of? What was emotional for you?” 

“I’m most proud of all of them,” Eames answers immediately, gesturing to the contestants. “They’ve all come so far.” 

“And because of that it’s been emotional every time we’ve had to say good-bye to someone,” finishes Arthur. 

“Not when I left,” Jess points out. “I was ready to go.” 

“Yes,” Meredith says, “and we’ve actually had some Twitter questions about that. Plethoraofeccentricities wants to know why you were happy to leave.” 

“It was a very personal decision,” says Jess, “but I just felt like it was time for me. I learned a lot and I had a blast but I was ready to not have cameras in my face all the time. You think you’ll be able to deal with that, but it actually takes a lot of adjustment and some people can do it but it’s not for everyone.” 

“Did the rest of you find that?” Meredith asks the other contestants. 

“Yeah,” Ariadne says. “It can be weird. But it was even weirder when sometimes I found myself forgetting they were even there.” 

Meredith turns to Arthur and Eames. “You’re most used to being in front of cameras. Do you find it difficult?” 

Arthur considers and answers slowly, “I think that I did, but I got used to it. I guess I haven’t thought about it much for a while now.” 

“I think Jess is right,” says Eames. “Some people just adjust to it, get used to it, and it doesn’t affect you anymore. I feel like Arthur and I just happen to be the kind of people who could adjust. And it helps that we’re not very different in front of the cameras than we are in real life, so I think we’ve found a way to make it work for us without expending a lot of effort.” 

“I think it also helps that our lives are actually very delineated between public and private,” Arthur adds. “I think people might have the impression that we live in the public eye all the time, and it’s certainly true that more of our lives are public on a larger scale than the average person’s life, but we know when our camera time ends, and when we go home we’re just us. We know the difference between our day jobs and the rest of our life, which I think makes it easier for us than on the contestants, who didn’t have as much downtime.” 

“I guess you could say we’ve achieved a good work-life balance,” Eames says, “except that ‘work’ for us is the public eye. But Arthur’s right that we’re sure to protect ourselves, to keep time for us. Everybody needs something that’s theirs and not everyone else’s. It’s why we’ve never released photos of, say, our bedroom. You get to see the rest of the house, but we kept something just for us.” 

Arthur nods, because he agrees with that, and because for a long time he thought he was the one who was so fiercely protective of aspects of their privacy, and that Eames would happily invite paparazzi to watch him shower, but he knows now that Eames cherishes the downtime just as much as Arthur does; he just does a better impression of not needing it. 

Meredith says, “Moving on, Involuntaryorange asks, ‘Although of course you were here “to win, not to make friends,” did you form any social connections that you think will endure beyond the show?’” 

A large number of the contestants, including Gon, Ariadne, and Sunny, say, “Yes,” firmly, immediately. 

Ariadne elaborates, “I’ve been seeing these people every day for a while now. I’m going to miss them!” 

“Awww,” says Sunny, and squeezes her hand. 

Gon looks caught between embarrassed and pleased by Ariadne’s statement and so settles on flustered, basically. 

Meredith says cheekily, “Well, I’m sure Arthur and Eames would agree that a reality show is a good place to fall in love.”

“Any place is a good place to fall in love if the person is right,” says Eames. 

“Awwww,” says Sunny again. 

Arthur says, “What you don’t know is that he plans all these smooth lines of his beforehand.” 

“Not true,” denies Eames, “don’t listen to him. My romantic genius is entirely spontaneous.” 

“Romantic genius,” says Arthur to him. “Is that how you’re classifying yourself now?” 

“I believe it was a remark made on Twitter about me,” says Eames loftily. “‘Eames buys Arthur the best gifts. He’s a romantic genius!’” 

“You do buy really good gifts,” Arthur allows. 

“It’s my romantic genius,” says Eames. 

Meredith says, “I bet Twitter would—”

And then there’s a heralding fanfare again. 

Trizz groans aloud, “Are you for fucking real?” 

And the thing is, Arthur really can’t decide if Alec is actually for fucking real. Because Alec is so absurd he should be a joke, except that he’s so serious about everything all the time. Arthur thinks of Saito warning Alec that he was giving him enough rope to hang himself, and he wonders if this is the great plan Saito and Mal had: If you give Alec long enough on a live television stage, the overwhelming evidence of his lunacy might make the network give up on him, and might alienate some of his fans. (Arthur is never so naïve as to think that it would ever alienate all of his fans; there is no accounting for some taste, Arthur thinks.) Alec’s been worried all along that Arthur and Eames were ruining his career, and now Saito and Mal are making sure he ruins it all by himself, apparently. 

Alec walks in dressed all in white satin. A white satin suit. That seals it, Arthur thinks. Nobody in their right mind wears a fucking white satin suit. Alec is definitely insane. 

Eames says, “Walking right in, Alec? I thought for sure you’d be carried in on a litter. Or maybe horse-drawn carriage.” 

“They wouldn’t let me have a horse,” Alec says, and Arthur thinks how that’s probably not a joke. Without taking his seat, Alec looks out over the audience. “I promised that I would tell the truth tonight, because I think the truth is important to all of _you_. And here is the truth.” Alec turns to Meredith and says very solemnly, “Meredith, I believe you asked about falling in love on reality shows.” 

“Actually,” Meredith tries, “I asked about social connections—”

Alec ignores her in favor of a delivering a soliloquy to the studio audience. “I didn’t fall in love on a reality show, but I did fall in love within the context of the reality show culture. The love of my entire life, in fact. How would you feel, if the person you wished to devote the rest of your life to told you that he did not feel the same, had never felt the same, would never feel the same? What if that person left you a sobbing heap on the floor of the open-plan eat-in kitchen of the apartment that you shared?” Alec turns to Arthur and intones very dramatically, “What, Arthur, if Eames were to leave you? What then?” He lifts his eyebrows. 

Arthur, bewildered, looks out at the crowd. He has no idea how else to respond. He can’t decide if refuting Alec’s lies about his adoration of Eames would be worthwhile or just pointless and exasperating in its futility. He can’t decide if he should laugh over the very idea that Eames would ever leave him, or if that would seem callous. He can’t even decide if Alec really is trying the whole Eames-is-my-great-love thing again even after the whole Misty Rainbow fiasco, or if maybe Arthur has hit his head and is in a coma (and, if he’s in a coma, how far back does it go). He really just wants to ask Saito if this is all part of the great give-Alec-enough-rope plan. 

Before Arthur can come up with any reaction at all, Meredith announces yet another commercial.


	207. Chapter 207

Eames leans forward as soon as the show cuts to commercial, and he looks ready to make a grab for Alec’s shiny white shirt. Arthur holds Eames back, even as he snarls, “What the fuck, Alec, seriously, what the _fuck_? A _sobbing heap_? In an _apartment we shared_? _What_? How the fuck can you be so bloody delusional? It’s of serious concern to me. You need to get yourself checked fucking out, do you hear me?”

“Why such a violent reaction?” sneers Alec. “Scared all the truth is going to come out?” 

“What truth?” Eames demands icily. “I’m not cheating on Arthur. I would never, ever, ever cheat on Arthur. I would never cheat on anyone. And I’m not going to leave him.” He looks at Arthur then. “I’m not going to leave you.” 

Arthur knows this. It’s nice to hear it said but there are other things he’s worrying about at the moment way more than the absurd idea that Eames would leave him. “I know,” he says. “Thanks.” He kisses Eames quickly. Then he turns to Alec. “Alec, here’s the deal: Remember how Saito warned you about having enough rope? I think you’re hitting that point now. And I think you need to stop. This show is about the contestants. Remember them? Why don’t we sit back and let them take center stage instead of us?” 

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” snaps Alec. “You’d love to get me to be quiet. Scared of what I’m going to say?” 

“No,” says Arthur evenly. “I’m not fucking scared of whatever fucking nonsense you’re going to say next. But you’re going to destroy your career right here and right now in front of this live studio audience, and I don’t want to watch that on a night when it’s supposed to be about _them_.” Arthur gestures toward the contestants. 

“If anyone’s going to destroy my career,” retorts Alec, “it’s going to be _you_.” 

“I am well aware that you think that,” mutters Arthur, on a sigh, because there’s only so many time you can speak logic in Wonderland. He glances off-stage, looking for Julia and assuming Julia’s avoiding them because coming to see them would mean she’d have to interact with Alec. But what he sees when he looks off-stage is Mal handing off index cards to Meredith, who’s nodding as she accepts them. Caught up in the whole exchange with Alec, Arthur hadn’t even realized that Meredith had left the stage. 

“Arthur’s right: This show is about the contestants,” says Eames, heedless of whatever’s going on off-stage with Meredith and Mal. “You do realize that, right? It isn’t about us. It was never about us.” 

“And yet,” says Alec, “you made it all about us.” 

Eames boggles. “ _I_ made it all about us?” 

“It’s not worth it,” Arthur says to Eames, watching Meredith as she comes back to the stage. “It’s never worth it.” How many times has he or Eames reached this conclusion, that engaging with Alec never achieves anything? Arthur hopes that whatever Saito and Mal have cooked up will be more effective than anything he or Eames have tried to just _stop Alec_. 

“I know—” Eames begins. 

Arthur can sense the “but” coming, so Arthur interjects, “Baa.” 

Eames nearly falls off his chair. 

Alec says to Arthur disdainfully, “You are actually insane. How you’ve convinced everyone you’re not is beyond me.” 

Which, Arthur thinks, is the most hilarious thing that has ever been said in the history of the world, considering the source.

Eames, balance somewhat recovered, gapes at Arthur. 

Arthur winks at him. Alec is an idiot, but Alec’s not Arthur’s problem. Eames is Arthur’s problem and Eames isn’t a problem at all, so Arthur is feeling smugly pleased with the lot he’s got in life. 

Someone says, “Mr. Hart, if you would take your seat, we’re coming back from commercial now—”

“I will not ‘take my seat,’” declares Alec haughtily. “I have had enough of doing as I’m told.” 

Arthur knows they’re not back live yet, but he throws a reaction look to the camera anyway. 

Eames speaks into Arthur’s ear. “Sometimes I think he’s so crazy I must be making him up but other times I worry that’s such an unpleasant hallucination for me to give myself. Quick, hurry up and start taking the rest of your clothes off.”

Arthur turns to face him, lifting an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?” 

“If I’m going to hallucinate things, a naked you is a better place to start than whatever fucked-up part of my brain made up Alec Hart.” 

“If your brain made up Alec Hart, then I’m really concerned about issues of self-loathing you’re revealing. Actually, everything about Alec really does reveal an alarming amount of self-loathing on your part.” 

Meredith says cheerfully, “Welcome back to the live finale of _Next Big Thing_ , where we’re chatting with—”

“Arthur, Eames, and their eternal third wheel,” says Alec mournfully. He has still not taken his seat. Instead, he’s standing center stage. And a single shimmering tear is working its way down his cheek. Arthur wonders what the fuck is up with him and these single tears. Alec looks away and sniffles and says, “Give me a moment to pull myself together.” 

“Of course,” says Meredith, sounding simperingly sympathetic. “Of course. Take as long as you need. I imagine it’s very difficult to recover from a sorrow such as yours.” 

Eames cocks his head at Meredith, looking confused. Arthur wonders if Meredith’s sudden kindness toward Alec is all part of what’s written on her index cards and the accompanying discussion with Mal. 

Alec says, “Think of the pain you experience when the person you love breaks up with you by saying he was always in love with someone else. And then imagine that that person forced you to work closely with him and his new significant other. You cannot imagine the—”

“You just asked them to imagine it,” Eames points out impatiently, “so now you can’t change your mind and belittle their imaginations. And that isn’t at all what happened.” 

“You’ve mentioned this several times,” says Meredith to Alec, still speaking gently, as if Eames hadn’t spoken at all. “I assume you’re referring to your relationship with Eames.” 

Arthur can tell Eames wants to protest here, but Arthur also is unsure what’s to be gained from fighting over this. They’ve fought this battle before. Alec is coming across poorly, Arthur thinks, and suspects this is exactly Saito’s plan. Arthur is willing to hang back and let Alec take advantage of all this lovely rope he’s been given. Arthur is willing to give Saito a little more time to see where his plan takes them, because it’s not like Arthur and Eames have been successful thus far. 

So Arthur leans over and purrs in Eames’s ear. 

Eames chokes a little on whatever he’d been about to say before Arthur distracted him and quickly crosses his legs, which amuses Arthur. If he looks a little self-satisfied when he settled back into his chair, well, the Internet is left to deduce, he thinks.


	208. Chapter 208

Meredith says, “I have a few questions about your relationship with Eames. If I could…?” 

Alec says, “It is always very painful and difficult to look back upon that time with Eames but I understand that the public is interested.” 

Arthur takes out his phone and texts Saito. _Plan????????????_ He is fucking asking his mother to break up with Saito unless this plan materializes sometime soon. 

Eames puts Arthur’s hand on his knee. 

Arthur takes it off and gives him a look. 

Eames murmurs, “I really need the comfort of your hand on me,” and puts his hand back on his knee. 

Arthur wants to protest looking all lovey-dovey when Alec is busy making Arthur out to be some kind of mate-stealing praying mantis or whatever the fuck kind of insect steals other people’s mates—

\--and then Arthur pays actual attention to what Meredith is saying. 

“So, just to clarify, the dates during which you dated Eames was in February and March, two years ago.” 

What a weird question, thinks Arthur. Who cares when the dating took place? 

“Yes,” sighs Alec. “A glorious two months. After which Eames broke my… _heart_.” Alec puts his hand over his heart and then abruptly pulls downward, which rips the white satin of his suit to expose red silk spilling out of it. 

There is a snuffling sound from the contestants that is probably a suppressed snort. Arthur just stares. 

Eames snaps, “It was three weeks. It was literally three weeks of…not dating. It just happened to span two different months, but it was only three bloody weeks.” 

“I lived a lifetime in those three weeks,” says Alec sorrowfully, and pats the red silk on his chest. 

Arthur takes out his phone again and tweets, _Keep voting, America!!!_ in order to show that he doesn’t give a fuck about Alec’s stupid melodrama he’s acting out here. 

“What weeks specifically did you date?” Meredith asks Eames. 

Eames heaves an exasperated breath and says, “I don’t remember. It wasn’t as big a deal as Alec’s making it out to be.” 

“Not to _you_ it wasn’t,” sniffs Alec. “You’ve made that very clear.” 

“Were you dating him on, say, March 1?” asks Meredith. 

Arthur tips his head, curious. He glances toward the sidelines, where Mal is smoking and watching. 

“‘Dating’ is…I mean…okay, yes,” says Eames. 

Meredith says, “Karen? Are you here?” 

Some woman Arthur’s never seen before steps onto the stage. She’s attractive but not showy, dressed somewhat conservatively. She looks a little overwhelmed by the brightness of the lights, which Arthur doesn’t blame her for. Arthur glances at Eames to see if he knows what’s going on but Eames looks just as perplexed as Arthur feels. 

Arthur’s phone buzzes, and he glances down to see a text from Saito. _Watch this_. Puzzled, Arthur looks back at Karen.

Karen says to Alec, “Remember me? You slept with me on March 1, two years ago. Told me that you ‘felt a connection to me you’d never felt to anyone else.’ Asked me if I believed in soulmates and told me that you definitely did and you thought I was yours. And then you never called me again. Remember that?” 

There is a moment of utter silence on the stage. Arthur glances at the contestants, all of whom look various stages of shock tinged with varying amounts of delight. Ariadne actually looks like she can’t believe her luck to be witnessing this. 

Eames says eventually, sounding like he’s on the verge of convulsing with mirth, “You _cheated_ on me, Alec? _Me_? The love of your life?” 

“Well, you were always—” sputters Alec. “I mean, you were hung up on Arthur, your heart was never in it, what was I supposed to do?” 

“Not cheat on me would have been a start,” remarks Eames blandly. “I never cheated on you. And I didn’t even think we were doing anything particularly noteworthy with each other, and I still was polite enough not to sleep with someone else during that time period.” 

“You cheated on me with Arthur!” Alec protests. 

“Darling,” says Eames, and lifts Arthur’s hand off his knee to press a kiss to his knuckle. “When did we start dating?” 

“May,” answers Arthur. Which is true. Yes, they slept together before that, but it was _way_ before that, not near the time period being discussed at all. 

“Did I sleep with you on March 1 of that year?” Eames inquires. 

“No,” says Arthur. “I would have remembered that. Seeing as you’re really good in bed.” Arthur feels like he can actually hear the audience furiously tweeting about this. 

“Your heart was never—” begins Alec. 

“My heart was Arthur’s,” Eames snaps. “I told you that, and I apologized for that, but I never slept with someone else.” 

“I slipped up one time—” starts Alec. 

“Let’s welcome Roger to the stage!” proclaims Meredith cheerfully. 

A man walks onto the stage and waves at the audience and says, “I was March 2.” 

The audience is just murmuring excitedly at everything going on. 

Alec stammers, “This isn’t—Who called—This isn’t what it looks like.” 

Then the man says to Alec, “Oh, I know you remember me… _Bobby_.” 

Alec goes silent and pale, blinking frantically. 

Arthur picks up his phone but can’t even think of what to text to Saito. Instead, he checks Twitter, where a tweet from Ariadne is currently being passionately retweeted. 

_The most amazing thing about all of this is finding out that Alec gets so many people to sleep with him!_

The other popular tweets of the moment are things like, _ASK IF HE ALWAYS KEEPS THE FEDORA ON FOR SEX_ and _Can we have a show where all of the contestants are Alec’s spurned lovers?_. And _Arthur and Eames are the cutest thing, why would Alec ever pick this battle????_ And _Does Alec really love things that aren’t himself? Seems unlikely._ And _Can we go back to when Alec had the Segway? What happened to the Segway? I’m worried about the Segway? Is it hurt?_

And _Shut up, Alec. The important question is: Is Arthur still stripping? He hasn’t taken anything off in a while._

Meredith says solemnly, “Eames, how does it feel to learn that Alec frequently cheated on you?” 

“Devastating,” replies Eames, with equal solemnity. “I don’t know how I’ll recover but I sense it will probably involve Arthur taking his clothes off for me. That fixes most ailments, I’ve found.” 

Arthur shakes his head and tweets, _This is why Eames is not a doctor_. But others have already tweeted, _Why doesn’t my doctor ever prescribe me naked Arthur???_

Alec says, “You know, this is ridiculous! Everyone runs around pretending like I’m the only one with a persona! Like I’m the only one faking it for the camera! For all you know, they’re not even in a relationship and this is all for the ratings!” Alec gestures to Arthur and Eames. 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at him, but thinks that doesn’t even call for a response. 

Eames puts Arthur’s hand back on his leg, higher up on his thigh now, patting it. 

Arthur gives him a dry look. 

Alec continues, “You’re all so naïve. You think what you see on TV is real? I don’t even design the rooms! No television designer designs the rooms!” 

“Eames designs the rooms,” Arthur inserts, because it’s true and he doesn’t want Eames getting painted with this brush. 

Alec snorts. “Yeah, right.” 

“He does,” Arthur says calmly. “He designs all of the rooms.” 

“Cobb’s seen him do it,” shouts Mal from off-stage, and shoves Cobb onto the stage, hissing, “Tell them.”

Cobb looks like he wants to die. “Uh, yes. Yeah, Eames designs the rooms.” 

“He designed the viewing party,” pipes up Jess, “and it was awesome.”

“Christ,” says Alec, rolling his eyes, “so Eames is Mr. Fucking Goody-Two-Shoes. That just makes him an idiot. I don’t design anything, and I still rake in the dough. I just sit back and let everyone else do all the work.” 

“And take all the credit?” says Meredith archly. 

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same thing, sweetheart,” says Alec. 

“I design for my show,” Meredith replies stonily. “And don’t call me ‘sweetheart.’”

“So,” says Ariadne, “just to clarify: You don’t actually do any designing. Ever. And you spent this whole show pretending to be qualified to judge our designs?”

“Oh, please,” scoffs Alec. “Arthur doesn’t design, either. Arthur lies worse than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“What has Arthur lied about?” asks Eames, voice lethally calm. 

“Arthur doesn’t even own a sex club! How about that, America? All this talk about sex clubs, he doesn’t even own one!”

“He’s always said he doesn’t own a sex club!” protests Ariadne indignantly. 

“And Arthur is qualified to judge designs,” adds Gon loyally. “He sells people homes. He knows what he’s talking about.” 

Arthur feels warmed to the very core by all of this. He doesn’t feel the need to defend himself here—Alec is off the rails, and it’s very clear he’s destroyed all of his credibility, on live national television, and Saito’s plan to give him enough rope to ruin his own career has worked beautifully—but it’s nevertheless extremely touching to have so many people leap to his defense. Not just Eames, but the contestants, too.

Alec says sarcastically, “Oh, yes. He sells people homes. Another one of his enormous lies. As if he is at all qualified to be selling people homes when he came from such an incredibly broken home himself. His father walked out on him when he was a baby, did you know that? How can he give people a home when he never had one himself?” 

Several things happen all at once at that. There is a general gasp of indrawn breath from everyone watching. Arthur feels so side-swiped by the attack that he has a moment of unreality in the wake of it. Eames reacts more quickly than Arthur could have imagined, up and out of his chair before Arthur’s even processed the impact of the statement. 

And then the lights go out all around them and everything goes pitch-black.


	209. Chapter 209

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you for the Godzilla joke (I think it might have been pureimaginatrix who started that!). 
> 
> And I'm so glad you all loved last chapter so much! :-)

The sudden descent into darkness causes a momentary silence, and then utter chaos. There’s screaming and shouting and general panic. 

Arthur grabs for where Eames last was, finds him solid and there, and pulls him toward him. He’s vibrating with anger, it’s rolling off him in waves. He doesn’t really fight Arthur’s pull but he does snarl at him, “What the fuck, he thinks he can bloody say anything at all about—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Arthur says, and finds Eames’s face by sensory memory, dots it over with kisses. “Doesn’t matter,” he says again. “Doesn’t.” Because it actually _doesn’t_. Alec’s an idiot and Arthur’s fatherlessness has long since stopped being the most important thing about him and Arthur only cares to the extent that it’s hurt his mother’s feelings and Arthur will check on her once this abysmal show is over. Arthur wants to run off and find her now, honestly, but Arthur is also a fucking professional and he’s not turning tail in the face of Alec’s absurdity. 

“Of course it matters,” Eames snaps, although the heat in his tone has subsided somewhat as he relents to Arthur’s kisses. He sinks back into his seat and lifts a hand to press Arthur against him, and Arthur in turn presses his face into Eames’s neck and just breathes for a second. There is chaos all around them, but right here it’s calm and, well, _real_. Alec is barely real, Arthur thinks. They’ve seen the most real part of him and it’s vicious and unpleasant. 

Eames sighs and kisses the top of Arthur’s head. “He’s such a fucking bully who shouldn’t be allowed to—”

“That’s why the lights are out,” notes Arthur simply into Eames’s skin. “Do you really think Saito would let him keep talking after that?” 

The lights blink back on. Arthur moves away from Eames. 

And Meredith says, “Wait, where did Alec go?” 

Alec has vanished without a trace. Alec is nowhere to be seen. Alec is gone as if Alec had never existed. 

Eames, looking astonished, leans down and kisses where Arthur’s right dimple would be and breathes, “Bloody hell, do you think he killed him?” 

“Never underestimate Saito’s poisonous fish,” says Arthur, feeling vaguely hysterical. He doesn’t know if Alec ran away himself, or if Arthur should be concerned, or if Arthur should rejoice, or… Probably Arthur should just take Eames somewhere and fuck him, that seems way less complicated than whatever Alec has done to their finale. 

Mal comes out onto the stage, shouting in French and trying to gain control, brandishing a cigarette all around. “Now, now, what’s all this? Everyone must calm down and pretend to be professionals for a little while longer. All of this commotion is unnecessary.” 

“But Alec has disappeared!” Meredith points out, gesturing to the lack of Alec on the stage. She’s stating the obvious, but apparently Mal needs it pointed out. Or maybe Alec disappearing was all part of Mal’s expected plan that she didn’t quite fill Meredith in on, thinks Arthur. He peers out into the audience, hoping for a glimpse of Saito and his mother, but the lights blind him as usual, and he’s not sure what to text Saito. _Hey, did you kill my irritating co-judge?_

Mal exhales a plume of smoke and then quotes Camus in French. 

Meredith stares at her and says, “What?” 

“What did she say?” Eames hisses into Arthur’s ear. 

“Basically, that life is absurd,” replies Arthur in a low voice. “That life at heart is nothing but absurdity.” 

“Spot on for this show,” mutters Eames. 

“The show must go on,” proclaims Mal loudly. “Alec has departed, as he must, after the recent revelations regarding the fraud he’s been perpetrating on all of us. I’m sure by this time he’s halfway to his lawyers’ to get advice about his contract. In the meantime, we will simply make his excuses for him.” Mal exits the stage in a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

Eames mumbles, “I don’t believe that story about Alec going to his lawyer for a second. Alec would never even have grasped that he said anything particularly controversial. Saito definitely had him killed. And they will never find the body.” Eames gazes out into the audience, as if he can see right into Saito’s eyes. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Arthur, putting all of his uncertain conviction into it. “He didn’t _actually_ have him killed. Although I do think he orchestrated that parade of ex-lovers.” 

“Yeah, what the hell was that, anyway?” asks Eames. “Alec actually got all those people to sleep with him? When he should have been sleeping with me?” 

“Ah, I knew your ego would be hurt,” says Arthur, and kisses Eames’s cheek fondly. 

“Well, fuck, there was no reason to cheat on _me_ , I am bloody brilliant in bed, it’s not my fault his fucking fedora made the sex bad.” 

“Of course not, viscount, you are very, very good in bed, prove it to me later tonight, hmm?” Arthur rests his fingertips against his mouth. It’s nothing obscene, but he knows that Eames’s brain jumps ahead to obscene thoughts, because he can see it in the satisfying dilation of Eames’s pupils. 

Arthur decides he has to text Saito _something_. He settles on, _Effective plan, it seems_. He decides against adding that it was both impressive and terrifying. 

Saito texts back immediately, _I have no idea what you mean. Alec did all of that entirely to himself_. 

“He’s probably Godzilla, you know,” says Eames under his breath. 

Arthur blinks at him in confusion. “What? Who?” 

“Saito.” 

“He’s not Godzilla,” sighs Arthur. 

“He could be. You don’t know. I’m just saying.” 

“No, I think that in fact I _do_ know that our agent is not Godzilla.” 

“I’m going to ask your mum if he fucks like a dragon, because that would be Godzilla evidence for me.” 

“I’m going to kill you,” Arthur replies mildly. 

Meredith says, “Welcome back. We had some technical difficulties but we’re back now. You, uh, may have noticed that Alec Hart has departed. We, um, will be doing the rest of the episode without him.”

Meredith glances off-stage, where Arthur can see Mal nodding approvingly and gesturing with her cigarette. 

There’s a murmur of reaction from the studio audience. Arthur wonders what’s going on on Twitter. 

Meredith says uncertainly, “So, um, where were we?” 

Which makes Arthur recall abruptly exactly what Alec said last. 

“Before we go any further,” says Arthur, without realizing he intended to say anything at all. “I just want to make clear that I never considered my home growing up to be ‘broken,’ which implies that it somehow needed to be fixed. I have a fantastic mother who filled our home with love and yes, that is exactly why I find homes for others, because I want to give them a space they can fill with love the way my mother filled mine. There’s no rule that your family needs a certain composition to have enough love to equal a home. So, yeah, we should go on to the Twitter questions and all that, but I just wanted to say that.” 

There’s a beat, and then the live studio audience breaks into applause and whistles. Arthur feels a bit embarrassed by this reception, and ducks his head a little, aware he’s blushing. He hopes his mother doesn’t feel too embarrassed by the whole thing. But he’s pretty sure she’s going to recognize that it comes from a place of great love, that Arthur intended it that way and that people understood that. 

Eames’s hand comes up, threading into Arthur’s hair so he can cup the back of his head, and he kisses Arthur’s temple and says, “I love you. Do I tell you that enough?” 

Arthur, somehow more embarrassed by that, manages to nod. 

The applause eventually dies down and Meredith says, “Thank you, Arthur. So. Shall we get back to the Twitter questions? Plethoraofeccentricities wants to know: ‘If you were trapped in a blender, how would you escape?’”


	210. Chapter 210

The blender question, in a weird way, seems to get the show back on track. Only something so absurd could shake them back into the Q&A frame of mind. Scott says that he would build something using the blades in the blender. Gon asks if it’s a blender that ever gets used, because that seems relevant.

Ariadne says, “I’d ask my guardian pixie sprite to save me,” and winks at Arthur. 

Eames says, “I would sit around and do nothing and wait for Arthur to have a really good idea.” 

Arthur says, “I would call Sebastian Stan.” 

“Because he’s well-known for his blender escaping ability?” asks Eames. 

“No, because if you’re stuck in a blender, you might as well enjoy yourself,” explains Arthur. 

“You could enjoy yourself with me,” Eames points out. 

“But you’re stuck in another blender. What good would calling you do me?” 

“If Sebastian Stan isn’t in a blender, he could probably help get you out,” notes Ariadne. 

“Good point,” Arthur allows. 

“But do you want to escape from a blender that has Sebastian Stan?” muses Eames. “That’s the real question, Twitter.” Eames tuts and shakes his head, as if disappointed in Twitter’s lack of focus on the question-asking front. 

It should feel awkward and forced, bantering when Alec has basically disappeared, but Arthur decides looking for Alec is someone else’s problem and their show has to go on and has honestly always functioned better without Alec. 

“Speaking of Sebastian Stan,” says Meredith. 

Arthur glances off-stage but can’t see anything going on, and he supposes they’re just meant to keep doing the Q&A as if all the craziness with Alec hadn’t just happened. 

Eames clearly reaches the same conclusion and strives to keep the banter going by saying, “Is this going to be a sex club question?” 

“Twitter is full of questions about the sex club,” says Meredith. 

“There isn’t any sex club,” Arthur says.

Eames winks exaggeratedly at the camera to punctuate Arthur’s remark. 

Arthur sighs and rolls his eyes. 

Meredith ignores both of them. “Literaturc asks, ‘Is the sex club hiring?’”

“No,” Arthur says. 

“It depends,” Eames says. “Does Literaturc have an attractive avatar?” 

“Literaturc’s avatar is, um, Arthur’s backside,” says Meredith. 

“I approve,” Eames says. “Literaturc is hired.” 

“You don’t make hiring decisions for the sex club,” Arthur tells Eames. “It’s _my_ sex club.” 

“I thought there wasn’t any sex club,” Eames reminds him. 

“There isn’t. But if there is, it’s mine, so. Yeah. I’m in charge of all fictional hiring at my fictional sex club.” 

“He’s a fictional control freak,” Eames tells Meredith. 

“Oh,” Meredith says, “here’s another inquiry about whether the sex club is hiring, from ill-leave-you-to-your-deductions. The avatar is Eames’s lips.” 

“Also hired. Excellent avatar choice,” Eames says. 

“He is nothing if not modest,” Arthur tells Meredith. 

Meredith says, “Therealpigfarts23 asks, ‘How can I get Eames to come and redesign my house? Tell him I know Sebastian Stan?’”

Eames laughs and says, “That’s not a bad start.” 

Meredith says, “Okay, so what if I tell you I know Sebastian Stan?” 

Eames looks at her in amusement. “Why? Do you need some design help?” 

“No,” says Meredith, and starts grinning. “I just know Sebastian Stan.”

And then, suddenly, just like that, Sebastian Stan’s image has been projected onto the screen on-stage. He waves. The live audience goes crazy. Arthur stares. 

Eames says, “Sebastian Stan is waving to us, darling, wave back.” 

“Hello, _Next Big Thing_!” says Sebastian Stan cheerfully. 

“Hello!” Meredith replies. “Thanks for calling in to our live finale!” 

“I just wanted to remind everyone to vote for your favorite contestant, and, Arthur, I’ll be glad when this show is over and you can dedicate the proper amount of attention to the club again.” 

Arthur can’t think of anything witty to say, so he just says a strangled “oh.” 

Sebastian Stan winks at him, looking tickled, and then waves at the audience again, bidding them farewell. 

In the audience cheering that follows, Arthur says to Eames, “So our co-judge just disappeared off the stage and now Sebastian Stan just talked to us. That’s the current state of this finale, right?” 

Eames says, “They literally got Sebastian Stan to call in and talk to you about your sex club. Darling, you should see your face.” 

Arthur can imagine. “I need a lot more processing time for, like, _everything_ here. I need a commercial break.” 

Ariadne says dazedly, “Sebastian Stan watches our show? Who else watches our show? Does Chris Evans?” 

"Alec Hart disappeared in front of us, right?" Arthur clarifies. "After destroying his own career in spectacular fashion on live national television?"

"Well, the lights went out but he definitely disappeared." 

“And we just went on with the show like nothing happened?" 

"Basically. We're professionals." 

"And now Sebastian Stan just--Eames, I don’t have a sex club. Right? I’m not going crazy, am I? I genuinely do not have a sex club to which Sebastian Stan belongs.” 

“You don’t,” says Eames, and pauses. “If you don’t count that fanfiction I read.”


	211. Chapter 211

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have the best ideas and I'm trying to credit but there's just so much collaborative creativity going on! I don't know who first suggested some of the theories referenced below THANK YOU. Eternal thank-you for always being so madly inspirational, all you commenters.

Luckily, a commercial break is exactly what comes up next. 

Arthur says, “This is insanity. Is this insanity?” 

Julia darts over to them, looking breathless. “ _What. The. Fuck_ ,” she says. “I mean, what _was_ that?” 

“I think it was the Ballad of the Self-Destruction of Alec Hart,” says Eames. 

“Oh, whatever about Alec,” she says, waving her hand around dismissively. “They just had _Sebastian Stan_ on this show. Talking about _your sex club_.” Julia gives Arthur a very meaningful look. 

“I don’t have a sex club,” Arthur insists. 

“Then why did Sebastian Stan say you did?” counters Julia. 

“I don’t know,” says Arthur. “Because he has a wicked sense of humor, I guess.” 

“I don’t approve of that,” frowns Eames. “No one should have a wicked sense of humor around you but me.” 

“Maybe he’s just a liar,” suggests Arthur, a little frustrated. 

“Which is exactly what you’d say if he was telling the truth,” remarks Eames. 

“You’re not helping,” Arthur tells him. “You are not helping an extraordinary amount.” 

“I wasn’t trying to help,” says Eames. 

“Anyway,” says Julia, “it’s clear someone in this place has Sebastian Stan connections, and I’m going to ferret out who.” 

“And what does Paul have to say about this?” asks Eames meaningfully. 

“Paul would be super into a threesome with Sebastian Stan,” says Julia. She doesn’t say _obviously_ at the end but it’s practically audible nonetheless. Then Julia just moves on from that bombshell. “The thing with Alec was crazy, too, huh? Do you think the network’s going to fire him? Do you think he’s really talking to his lawyers now?” 

“I have no idea,” says Arthur. “But after all that happened with Alec on this stage, I can’t believe that you would come out here and want to talk about _Sebastian Stan._ ” 

Julia gives him a pitying look. “Arthur, Sebastian Stan is a way more interesting topic of conversation than Alec.” 

Twitter seems to agree. There are bunch of tweets with the hashtag #whereisalechart but they seem to be mostly jokes. 

_Alec Hart is halfway to Antarctica right now. #whereisalechart_

_Alec Hart is already resurrecting himself as a new annoying reality show personality, just wait. #whereisalechart_

_Alec Hart was never a person at all. He was an alien. #whereisalechart_

_Alec Hart was always just a fedora. If you look for him now, you will find only the fedora on a pile of ash. #whereisalechart_

But Arthur can see exactly where Sebastian Stan showed up on the show, because Twitter devolves into _!!!!!!!_

_DID SEBASTIAN STAN JUST COME ON THIS SHOW TO TALK ABOUT #ARTHURSSEXCLUB? OMG_

_I KNEW IT. I ALWAYS KNEW ARTHUR RAN A SEX CLUB. #TRUTH_

_Sebastian Stan, Arthur, Eames, all in one place… #illbeinmybunk_

_I bet Sebastian Stan knows where Alec Hart is. I bet he’s holding him hostage right this minute._

They start to count them in from commercial. 

“Got to go,” Julia says, and flits back off-stage. 

Arthur says, “Mal and Saito planned that timing exactly. They got rid of Alec Hart and then distracted everyone with shiny Sebastian Stan and now Alec Hart is like a distant Internet memory as far as Twitter is concerned.” 

Eames says dazedly, “Did she just say…About Paul…And a threesome with Sebastian Stan?”

“Eames, I don’t want to think about Paul and Julia and threesomes. Can we not think about anyone’s sex lives but our own?” 

“Paul has never mentioned being interested in a threesome with _us_ ,” says Eames, sounding offended. 

“I don’t want to have a threesome with Paul,” says Arthur. 

“It’s the _principle_ of the thing, darling. Why’s he want a threesome with Sebastian Stan and not with us? We are two very attractive men. Paul could do far worse than us.” 

“I don’t want to have a threesome with _anyone_ ,” says Arthur. 

“A bit vanilla for a sex club manager, darling.” 

“Look, my sex club is a very exclusive sex club where you’re the only member, okay? You, me, and my apparent feral sexuality.” 

“And that makes me very lucky, and I am very happy with our very exclusive sex club, but I _do_ think we should be on everyone’s threesome short list, okay?”

“See, you’re doing it, too,” Arthur points out in a hiss, because they’ve got three seconds until the commercial break ends. 

“Doing what?” Eames whispers back. 

“Talking about Sebastian Stan instead of whatever the fuck happened to Alec.” 

“To be fair,” says Eames, “I’m talking about threesomes. And my mic is live right now,” he realizes, at the same moment Arthur does. “Hello, America,” says Eames, and smiles and waves at the camera. “Welcome back to _Next Big Thing_.”


	212. Chapter 212

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Chocolamousse who doesn't get a Fwitter shout-out but did suggest the "Eames's favorite body part" question.

Meredith simply moves on from Eames’s introduction—it’s hardly the strangest thing to happen on the finale—and says, “And we’re very happy to welcome back an additional guest. Misty Rainbow!” 

Misty Rainbow walks onto the stage to applause and waves to the crowd and takes a seat. She looks relaxed and happy now that Alec is nowhere near the stage. 

Meredith says, “Welcome, Misty Rainbow. We’re glad you could join us.” 

“Me, too,” says Misty Rainbow. 

“As the viewers at home know, we’ve been answering some Twitter questions about your experience on this show.” 

“I heard,” says Misty Rainbow. “Some of them I really wanted to answer. Not the blender one, though. I have no idea what I’d say to the blender one.” 

“What about, Why did you get into interior design in the first place?” asks Meredith. 

Misty Rainbow says, “My distaste for consumerism.” 

“Exactly the opposite of why most people go into interior design,” remarks Arthur. 

Misty Rainbow smiles at him and says, “Oh, Arthur,” and Arthur laughs. 

As does the audience. 

“Here’s a question for Arthur,” Meredith says. “Liyuanne asks, ‘If you had to date one of the contestants who would it be?’”

Arthur draws a blank. He’s fond of most of the contestants, but the only person he wants to date in the entire universe is Eames. So he says, “It would be whichever contestant was willing to date a person who’s in love with someone else.” 

The audience aww’s a little. 

Eames says, “Careful, that’s what got me into trouble with Alec Hart.” 

The aww’s turn into scattered laughter. 

“No falling in love with one of the contestants through their designs?” teases Meredith. 

“I think probably that’s going to be in a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me,” says Arthur. 

“Here’s another question for Arthur,” Meredith says. “From Twilitdragoneye. What is your favorite Eames design outside of your house?” 

Arthur answers this one readily. “The first design I ever saw him do on _Love It or List It_. I just think you never forget your first Eames.” 

“Said as filthily as only a sex club manager could say that,” adds Eames, and waggles his eyebrows. 

There’s laughter from the audience, and a wolf whistle from Ariadne. 

Arthur just sighs and rolls his eyes. And dimples, because he fools exactly no one with that act, everyone knows he finds Eames adorable. 

“Speaking of _Love It or List It_ ,” says Meredith, “aadarshinah wants to know how _Next Big Thing_ has differed for you from _Love It or List It_.” 

“I just had the last two questions, you take this one,” Arthur tells Eames. 

“I don’t want to speak for both of us,” says Eames, “but I think we’ve loved it. I’ve really enjoyed the inspiration of getting to see other people’s designs, which I don’t get to do on _Love It or List It_ , and I think we’ve both loved having a break from competing against each other, which can get really old.” 

“Yeah, we like each other,” notes Arthur. 

“As you may have noticed,” adds Eames, to some audience laughter. 

“So we like working with each other,” continues Arthur, “and the structure of _Love It or List It_ has us purposely at odds, so it can get trying. _Next Big Thing_ has been a lot of fun, and not just because we were working together but because getting to know the contestants has been so wonderful.”

Meredith says, “We’ve already talked a little bit about the show, but here’s another question: Entangledwood asks what your favorite design of the series was, whether by you or someone else.” 

Arthur has to think about this one, so he’s glad that the contestants go first. 

“I think it was Ariadne’s coffee shop design,” Gon says. “I was astonished at how brilliant and clever that was.” 

Ariadne repays the favor. “Well, I liked Gon’s bathroom. Perfect complement to my own secret room, I thought. And who wouldn’t want a bathroom like that? ” 

“I loved Misty Rainbow’s outdoor living room,” says Sunny. “It was just lovely.” 

“And I liked your desk,” says Misty Rainbow. “It’s a really beautiful piece.” 

“I loved so many,” Eames says. “It’s almost impossible to choose. But I think maybe I would choose Gon’s closet, because I think he really came into his own in that challenge and he designed for my boyfriend almost better than I did.” 

“So I guess the answer to the ‘which contestant would I date’ question would be Gon,” deadpans Arthur. 

Eames laughs. 

Meredith says, “We’re not letting you off the hook, Arthur. Favorite design?” 

Arthur decides, “Ariadne’s micro-apartment design. I love Escher, and I loved the space.” 

Meredith says, “Here’s a question from Compromised-by-castiel for Eames: Will you send out requisite climbing shots of Arthur every so often?” 

“Absolutely,” answers Eames without hesitation. “I am well aware how vitally important they are, and I will not forsake you.” 

“Are we getting into this ridiculous topic again?” sighs Arthur. 

“Darling, are you feeling left out? You can join in the fun, you know. What’s your favorite of my body parts?” 

“Your mouth,” Arthur says without thinking, and then is relieved he didn’t say anything filthier than that. Because, honestly, usually Arthur is pretty sure it’s Eames’s mouth but sometimes it’s decidedly other part of Eames. 

Eames smirks his mouth at him. 

Meredith agrees, “It is a good mouth. And speaking of objectification of our judges, we’ve had lots of inquiries whether you might take your shirt off, Eames.” 

Eames opens his mouth to answer, but Arthur leaps in to say, “Eames has to keep his shirt on, it’s an _orgy_ shirt.” 

“It’s true, it’s all sorts of free advertising for the sex club,” agrees Eames.

“But,” says Arthur, “I’ll take off my jacket, how’s that?” 

Eames’s head turns to face him so quickly that it’s practically cartoonish. “What?” he asks, sounding strangled. 

Arthur grins at him and winks and stands up and sheds his jacket, to great applause. 

Shedding the jacket reveals he’s not wearing any cufflinks, but he calmly just rolls his sleeves up. 

Then he sits back down and smiles beatifically at Eames. 

Eames is just staring at him. 

Meredith says, “Speaking of orgies—which isn’t a transition you get to make on a lot of shows—this show was full of what the fans would call ‘shipping.’ Pushing all of you together in lots of different iterations. In a way, this show was its own sort of orgy.” 

“It was a sexless orgy,” notes Trizz drily. 

“Speak for yourself,” says Misty Rainbow, which gets a laugh from the crowd. 

“Well, if anyone knows orgies,” says Eames, “it’s us.” 

“No, it’s not,” says Arthur. “We don’t know anything about orgies.”

“We know what’s on my shirt,” Eames points out. 

“I don’t think your shirt is necessarily an accurate depiction. It doesn’t portray anatomy correctly,” replies Arthur. 

“We know orgies,” Eames says staunchly. 

“On that note, it’s time for a commercial break,” proclaims Meredith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're interested in a chatroom! 
> 
> I think I posted the wrong link before. Try this one: https://inceptionfandom.campfirenow.com/dd008
> 
> (Thanks to Aja!)


	213. Chapter 213

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ICYMI, there is an NBT-party dedicated chatroom here: inceptionfandom.campfirenow.com/dd008

Julia comes out during the break but it’s mostly just to be drunk around them. “This is a fucking long show, huh?” she says, as she waves very enthusiastically at Ariadne. 

“It’s longer when you’re out here under these lights,” notes Arthur. 

“It’s even longer when you’re out here under these lights looking at Arthur,” adds Eames. 

“So is this your sex club look?” Julia asks Arthur. “I bet it is.” 

“I don’t have a sex club look.” 

“No, he likes to mix it up,” says Eames. 

Arthur sighs. 

Ariadne has wandered over, apparently attracted by Julia’s beckoning, and says, “Hi.” 

“Ari!” exclaims Julia upon seeing her. “Longest show ever, am I right?” 

Ariadne cocks her head and says, “Are you drunk? What the hell, how come you get to be drunk? We should all be drunk.” 

“We _should_ all be drunk,” agrees Arthur. 

“No, Arthur shouldn’t be drunk,” says Eames. “I have plans for Arthur tonight.” 

“There’s an after-party, you know,” Julia reminds him. “Oh! Will the plans happen at the after-party? Is there going to be an orgy?” 

“That depends,” says Eames. “Will there be dancing at the after-party?” 

“Our parents are going to be at the after-party,” Arthur reminds Eames. 

“I think our parents know about sex, darling,” Eames tells him. “They managed to have us, after all.” 

“Your mom’s probably all up on Saito as we speak,” says Julia. 

“That’s a great mental image for me, thank you, Julia,” says Arthur drily. 

Julia salutes him, apparently convinced he was thanking her seriously, and says, “Hey, Ari, are you coming to the after-party? Because I want you to meet Paul!” 

“Paul’s coming to the after-party?” says Eames. “He didn’t mention that.” 

“Because you weren’t supposed to be talking to Paul because we were supposed to be taking this week off,” Arthur reminds him. 

“Paul and I are friends,” sniffs Eames. “We talk about non-work things. We have a lot in common.”

“Like what?” asks Arthur. 

Eames considers. “Physics. Paul really loves physics.” 

“You hate physics,” Arthur points out. 

“But I love practical, logical men, darling. Case in point.” Then Eames growls and bites under Arthur’s ear. 

“Is this going to turn into an on-stage orgy?” asks Julia. “Because ratings would be _through the roof_.” 

They’re being counted in from commercial now, so Arthur just says, “Go away.” 

“Fine, fine,” says Julia, and waves her arm around. 

Ariadne looks at Arthur and says, “She’s right, though. My entire life is hanging in the balance right now and we keep answering stupid Twitter questions.” 

“Nothing about your life is hanging in the balance,” says Eames, from where he’s positioned with his chin perched on Arthur’s shoulder. “You’re a talented designer and everyone knows that and it doesn’t matter who wins tonight, you’re all going places.” 

“Good pep talk,” Ariadne smiles at him. 

“Even GPSes need pep talks sometimes,” says Eames. 

Ariadne scurries back over to her side of the stage. 

Arthur takes out his phone, hoping to check Twitter before the show starts up again, and shrugs Eames off his shoulder simultaneously. “Control yourself, viscount,” he says, reading the top tweet. _I love how this show has just moved on as if Alec didn’t suddenly disappear. #nbtfinale_

Eames says, “You have been seducing me all evening, and now you think you get to play hard-to-get, kitten?” 

_Was Alec Hart a mass hallucination we all had? He used to be on this show, right? #nbtfinale_

He leans in to press a kiss to the back of Arthur’s neck but it isn’t the chaste sort of kiss he’d pressed there before. It’s wet and messy, with generous tongue and an edge of teeth. 

Arthur can’t help the fact that his breath catches and he jerks a little bit, two things he knows Eames notices because he feels the smile Eames’s mouth curves into against his skin. 

_At this rate Arthur and Eames are just going to start having sex on the show soon, right? #nbtfinale_

“Reply to that one,” murmurs Eames, tugging at Arthur’s earlobe with his teeth. “Tell them yes.” 

“I’m telling them no,” Arthur manages, ducking his head away. “Because do you know what I’m fucking good at and what you fucking love?” 

Eames lifts his eyebrows at him. 

“The slow burn,” says Arthur, and drags his thumb along Eames’s lush lower lip. 

Eames says thickly, “Fuck you.” 

Arthur dimples at him and says, “Yeah.” 

Meredith says, “Welcome back to the _Next Big Thing_ live finale, America!”


	214. Chapter 214

Meredith gets them right back into the questions. “Entangledwood wants to know which challenge the judges considered the most difficult for the contestants to have been given.” She looks at Arthur and Eames expectantly. 

Arthur reflects firstly on the fact that he and Eames are now accepted as the sole judges of the show. Then, secondly, he considers the question. 

Eames says, “The outdoor living room. I think decorators of a certain type, like me, like many of the contestants, I think, tend to think of very defined spaces when we think of rooms, very finite spaces. We think of floors and walls and ceilings and how we can work within them. To be told to design outside requires you to think about living space in a very different way, I think.” 

Arthur says, “The open house challenge. I think many designers are used to designing for specific clients. To design for no one at all is a very particular sort of skill. Much like designing for an outdoor space. But because open houses are kind of my thing, I feel like I appreciate how tricky they are.” 

Meredith says, “Here’s a question for Eames: burning-up-ao3 wants to know if you feel more at home in America or England.” 

“I love England and will always be British—” starts Eames. 

“His allegiance to Marmite speaks for itself,” inserts Arthur, to some laughter from the audience. 

Eames laughs as well and says, “But I—”

He’s interrupted by a voice from the audience shouting, “Marmite is brilliant!” It sounds—again—suspiciously like Albert. Are their parents _drinking_ , Arthur wonders. He wouldn’t put it past Eames to have slipped them some flasks. 

Eames laughs again with scattered applause from the audience and then he says, “But I feel more at home in America these days because Arthur is in America and I’d have a hard time feeling at home anywhere Arthur wasn’t.” 

The audience awww’s. 

Eames winks at Arthur. 

Meredith says, “I suppose the obvious follow-up question is whether England could ever be your home, Arthur.” 

Arthur says, “It could be, if Eames was there, because I feel much the same about the situation as Eames does.” 

Which earns them more awwwww’s.

Meredith says, “And a question for all of you now: jbluphin asks what has surprised you the most about your experience on _Next Big Thing_?”

“Everything,” says Trizz. “Can we say everything?” 

“I think I was surprised by how much Internet voting can throw things off,” says Jess. “I thought Maria left much earlier than she deserved to.” 

Maria blushes a little bit and ducks her head as the audience claps for her. 

Scott says, “I was surprised by how much there was to learn from everyone. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what I was good at, but everyone else constantly made me want to up my game.” 

Gon says, “I was surprised by how fun this whole thing has been. I really didn’t think an intense competition against top-notch designers could ever be fun, but I have had more fun with design during this show than I ever have before. I really cannot stress enough how much I think that my ultimate takeaway has been how fun design can be, and how much I owe to everyone on this show for teaching me that.” 

There’s a brief burst of spontaneous applause from the live studio audience at that. 

Ariadne says, “I think I was surprised by how many lifelong friends I’ve made on this show. I mean, I especially didn’t think that I would come out of it feeling like I’ve met people who will be really important to me for the rest of my life, but I totally did.” 

The other contestants murmur their agreement. 

“I agree,” Sunny says. “I was really surprised by how _nice_ everyone was. I thought this show would be cutthroat and unpleasant because it is, after all, a competition, but I was surprised by how wonderfully supportive everyone was. When one of us had a design problem, I feel like we frequently all worked together to help solve it. Like, I feel like we all genuinely want each other to succeed.” 

The other contestants keep murmuring their agreement. 

Misty Rainbow says, with a little grin, “I was pleasantly surprised by how nice all of your consumerists can be,” and gets a laugh from the crowd. 

“I assume the judges were surprised during this show, too,” says Meredith, prompting Arthur and Eames to speak. 

Eames says, “I was surprised by the truly incredible quality of everyone’s designs. I wasn’t sure what to expect and everyone routinely blew me away.” 

Arthur feels everyone look at him, because he knows it’s his turn, and he says, “I was surprised by how much fun I’ve had, by how much I’ve really enjoyed all of this. I mean, it’s been crazy, too, for reasons that everyone knows, but, well, Eames thought this seemed like it would be a blast for us to do and I didn’t agree but I thought I’d give it a try and I have ended up havgin a great time.” 

Eames says, “So Arthur was mostly surprised that I turned out to be right for once.” 

“You get it right every once in a while,” Arthur allows. 

Eames smiles at him and says, “I do at that, darling,” and kisses his eyebrow.


	215. Chapter 215

Meredith turns to the contestants and says, “Reticentobsessive asks: ‘Do you feel you have changed as a designer through this experience? If so, was there a particular turning point for you?’”

“Absolutely,” says Ariadne, nodding. 

Gon says, “Yes.” 

The other contestants all say similar affirmative things. 

Gon says, “I have to give credit to Arthur, for mentoring me on the closet challenge. I really think his insights were a total turning point in my design process.” 

Arthur knows he blushes and Eames squeezes his knee and then kisses behind his ear. Eames is growing progressively more demonstratively affectionate as the show wears on, and normally Arthur would call him on it but Arthur is aware he’s been deliberately seducing Eames for long enough now that he can’t really complain that Eames is clearly growing impatient. 

Ariadne says, “I have to give credit to Arthur, too. After he really liked both my coffee shop and my small space, I feel like I really gained confidence and settled down for the rest of the competition.” Arthur gets the impression Ariadne would have winked at him if she wasn’t on camera. 

Sunny says, “I think my turning point came in the open house challenge, when Eames was so nice about how designs can connect with what’s inside your heart. I really think that gave me the ability to really design who I was, instead of always designing for everyone else. And then when Arthur was so receptive to my outdoor living room design, after I followed my heart, that really helped.” 

Arthur thinks of how much Sunny used to cry back then, at basically everything they said, and marvels at how far she’s come. 

“I think the outdoor living room design was my turning point, too,” says Misty Rainbow. “I felt like it was the first time in the competition that I really communicated my vision.” 

Arthur recalls how much he adored Misty Rainbow’s outdoor living room, and tends to agree. 

Eames remarks, “It begs the question, Misty Rainbow, whether you oughtn’t to be a landscape designer.” 

“I’ve had the same thought, actually,” Misty Rainbow admits, and Arthur smiles in genuine pleasure at the idea. “I do think I would enjoy connecting people with nature very directly.” 

“I think you would, too,” says Arthur. 

Misty Rainbow smiles at him. 

Meredith says, “Kind of related to that last question, Kate2kat and Bookshop both ask the contestants about the mentoring experience on this show. Was it valuable? Did it help you understand more about your skills as a designer? Have you benefited from the judges’ advice?” 

Most of the contestants nod and make affirmative noises and then Misty Rainbow says, “Well. Are we talking about Arthur and Eames? Because they were helpful. Alec Hart can go fuck himself for all I care.” 

Arthur thinks that the censors are probably going crazy trying to beep out Misty Rainbow but the live studio audience loves her and gives her a round of applause complete with whistles of enthusiasm. 

“But Arthur and Eames are great,” Misty Rainbow reiterates into the applause. 

“I’ve learned so much from Eames,” Sunny agrees. 

“He’s very eloquent on the subject of design,” Gon adds. “And, of course, he’s one of the best there is, so it’s such a great opportunity to be able to learn from the best. And Arthur has a really valuable perspective for our future careers.” 

“And Arthur’s just good at giving you room to be yourself, and stand up for yourself, and be true to your vision,” Misty Rainbow says. “He gives you advice, but he doesn’t smother you with it.” 

Ariadne says, “I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I feel like Arthur and Eames really dedicated themselves to this show in a way that made us so lucky. They treated us like friends, and that made all the difference in our ability to learn.” 

The other contestants nod. 

Arthur feels almost embarrassed by the profusion of praise. 

Meredith says, “Our next question—”

Eames says, “Can’t they keep answering that question? They were saying such lovely things.” 

The studio audience laughs. 

So does Meredith, and then she continues, “Our next question comes from Cosmogyral-mad-woman: ‘What’s on your iPod?’”

“Metallica,” says Ariadne. 

Gon says, “I tend to keep fiddling around with what I keep on my iPod, depending on the project I’m working on. Is that weird?” 

Sunny says, “I have a lot of music you can dance to, because that’s important.” 

Misty Rainbow says, “Bon Jovi,” and draws everything to a screeching halt. 

“Bon Jovi?” echoes Meredith. 

“Yeah,” confirms Misty Rainbow. 

“Like, the band Bon Jovi?” asks Eames. “Like, _oh-oh, living on a prayer_?” 

“You don’t sing that as well as Bon Jovi, but yeah. Why wouldn’t I? That’s an awesome song.” 

“We just all thought you’d have Tibetan monks chanting on your iPod,” explains Eames. 

Misty Rainbow shrugs. “I like Bon Jovi.” 

“So does Arthur,” says Eames. “That’s the only reason I know anything about Bon Jovi. Arthur subjects me to terrible music like that. I tend to listen only to highly obscure bands that never hit it big because they were all too intelligent for society at large to truly appreciate.”

“He’s lying,” Arthur says. “That is not true.” 

“You like Bon Jovi,” says Eames.

“I do like Bon Jovi, that is true. Misty Rainbow’s right, that’s an awesome song.” 

“Arthur listens to a lot of French music,” Eames says. “I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift. We find overlap every once in a while. Namely in Edith Piaf.” 

“Yes, the well-known French Taylor Swift,” says Arthur drily, and Eames laughs. 

“Another question from Cosmogyral-mad-woman,” says Meredith. “‘What is your favorite activity?’”

“X-rated,” says Eames. “Next question.” 

The live studio audience laughs. 

Arthur says, “Speak for yourself. My favorite activity is cooking,” earning more laughter. 

Eames says, “He’s such a liar. He’s an enormous liar. His favorite activity is also X-rated. Next question.” Eames kisses Arthur’s left dimple, which Arthur knows is in full blinding evidence at the moment. 

“Okay, fine, next question,” relents Meredith. “Magicranberries asks, ‘Do you feel like the show’s editing portrayed you accurately? Did anything surprise you when you watched the show?’”

There’s a moment of reaction time and general “good question” noises. 

Scott says, “I think it’s hard to feel like anything about you is accurate when you’re forced into an outside perspective of yourself. Like, having to watch yourself on television is exactly like when you look at photos of yourself and you’re like, ‘That’s what I look like?’ Even if it’s one hundred percent true, it doesn’t feel right to you.” 

It’s a good and true description, Arthur thinks. Certainly he always feels as if he can hardly recognize himself when he watches himself on television, is appalled to think that what he sees on television is true. 

“What about you judges?” Meredith asks, turning to Arthur and Eames. “Same feeling?” 

“Well, yeah,” Arthur says. “It’s weird, and I’m not sure you ever get used to it. I still hate to watch myself on television.” 

“Were you surprised by anything on this show?” Meredith persists. 

“How many shots were of my ass,” drawls Arthur drily, and some wolf whistles emanate in his direction from the audience. 

“I will say that the filming of this show was sometimes….confusing,” says Eames. “And I am saying that delicately so as not to level accusations but there were definitely things that ended up on camera that neither Arthur nor I were aware were being recorded, really.” 

“That’s an important point,” Arthur agrees. It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment, but he’s glad Eames brought it up. “There were actually several moments that made it into broadcast that we had thought at the time were private moments. The question about whether or not the show was real earlier? It was so real that we didn’t even know we were being filmed sometimes.” 

“We don’t normally make out on camera as much as we did on this show,” remarks Eames. 

Arthur gives him a look but he’s focused on the camera, cheeky smile on his face. 

“Although we do make out a lot,” continues Eames. 

“Eames,” says Arthur. 

“Sometimes on camera for the sex club,” says Eames. 

“Oh, my God,” says Arthur. “My _mother_ is in the audience. Moving on.” 

“Is your mother in the audience?” Meredith asks, sounding delighted. “Isn’t that lovely?” 

“My mother and Eames’s parents,” Arthur confirms. 

“Hello, Arthur’s mom! Hello, Eames’s parents!” Meredith waves to the audience. “Were you also surprised by how many shots were of your son’s backside, Arthur’s mom?” 

“We are so moving on,” says Arthur. 

“No!” shouts a voice that clearly belongs to Maggie. “He has an admirable bottom!” 

Arthur wonders exactly how red he is. 

“Awww, your mom thinks you have an admirable bottom!” says Meredith to Arthur. 

Eames says, “No, actually, that was my mum, and I guess it’s good to know she thinks I have a good-looking boyfriend.” 

“Two thumbs up!” shouts Albert from the audience, to raucous applause and laughter.

Arthur hisses at Eames, “Are your parents actually drunk right now? Did you slip them alcohol?” 

And then Arthur hears his mother’s voice call out, “And Eames isn’t so bad himself!” 

Arthur’s eyes widen in shock, because he can think of nothing that seems less like his mother than _that_. 

Eames, looking deeply amused, says, “My money’s on Saito having a flask.”


	216. Chapter 216

“Getting back to a more serious topic,” says Meredith, “Bookshop wants to know if being on _Next Big Thing_ has given you a career boost. Any job opportunities?”

“A few, yeah,” says Jess. 

“People have definitely contacted me,” says Misty Rainbow. 

“I think it was a really good opportunity to show off our strengths,” says Scott. “People really got an idea of whether or not you were someone they might want to have working for them.” 

“We’ve been so busy with the show,” Ariadne says, “that we haven’t really gotten out there yet. But I’m hoping good things are to come!” 

“I’m sure they are,” says Meredith, smiling. “Tryingtofindthegreatperhaps asks: ‘When approaching the design requirements did you think about the practicality of how that room would be used or more about the artistic aspect that could be explored?’”

All of the contestants answer immediately, but they all seem to answer something different so all that can be heard in response is a cacophony. 

Meredith and the studio audience laugh as the contestants look at each other in amusement.

“So I guess there’s no consensus on that,” Meredith notes. 

“I think it possibly depends on your design philosophy,” Gon says. 

“Can the answer be both?” asks Ariadne. “Because I think that I started with the practicality of what the room would be used for at heart, and then used that as the inspiration for my artistry.” 

Meredith says, “Eames, what do you do?” 

“Pretty much as Ariadne said,” says Eames, “except that I define practicality _very_ broadly. I think of what the room’s going to be used for, I let my imagination run wild, and then I pull practicality back in at the very end. But if you start with the fact of what the room’s going to be used for, then I think your design, no matter how outrageous, will still end up being essentially appropriate, with a few practical tweaks.” 

“Sounds like solid advice,” says Meredith. “Here’s a fun question: Plethoraofeccentricities asks, ‘What is your spirit animal?’”

“Cat,” answers Arthur immediately, because that opportunity is just way too good to pass up. “My spirit animal is a cat.” 

Eames chokes, coughing violently. 

Arthur looks off-stage and says placidly, “Could we get some water? He might need some water.” 

Eames waves the request off, trying to catch his breath. 

Meredith says after a second, “Okay, so your spirit animal is a cat—”

“Or a sheep,” adds Arthur. “It’s one or the other. What do you think, Eames?” 

“It’s, um, yeah, definitely one or the other,” manages Eames. 

“And I think Eames’s spirit animal is a puppy,” says Arthur. 

“I’ve always thought I was more like a flamingo,” says Eames. 

“If you’re a bird, you’re a bower bird. One of those birds who brings their mates lots of lovely, shiny things and builds gorgeous nests.” 

“I think that’s a compliment,” says Eames. 

Arthur grins at him. 

Ariadne says, “I think Gon’s spirit animal is a giraffe.” 

“A giraffe?” echoes Gon blankly. 

“You know,” Ariadne says, “cool and funky and one of a kind. Like a giraffe.”

Gon goes bright red and stammers something like, “Thank you.” 

Sunny says, “I think Ariadne’s spirit animal is an otter.” 

“Thank you!” says Ariadne. “An otter’s awesome!”

“And I think Sunny’s spirit animal is a deer,” says Misty Rainbow, gesturing with her hands as if she can conjure the deer into existence. “A doe, in the forest.” 

Sunny doesn’t look like she quite knows what to make of that but graciously says, “Oh. Thank you.” 

“Misty Rainbow’s spirit animal is a phoenix,” says Scott. 

“A phoenix is mythological,” Eames points out. “Can your spirit animal be mythological?”

“The question didn’t specify,” Scott replies. 

Trizz says, “My spirit animal is a sloth.” 

Jess says, “That’s my spirit animal, too!” 

And then they high-five.


	217. Chapter 217

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's late, but enjoy the comment party tonight, guys. ;-)

“Now,” says Meredith, settling herself in her seat as if she’s getting ready to talk about something very juicy, “there is one thing that I have to bring up, that several people have raised on Twitter. Based on some of your comments, the fans want to know: Do you read fanfiction?” 

Eames answers without hesitation. “Yes,” he says. 

Arthur clarifies, “He reads more than me, but I’ve read some.” 

“Really?” Meredith looks tickled and fascinated. “And what do you think?” 

“A lot of it is really very excellent and creative,” says Eames. 

Meredith says, “Why don’t you read as much as Eames does, Arthur?” 

“I think it’s connected to my dislike of watching myself on television, too,” says Arthur. “There’s just something unnerving about outside perspectives on yourself. I don’t have anything against it and I’ve read some very good pieces of fanfiction; I just think Eames is better at reading it and distancing himself.” 

Eames says, “I find it interesting. It intrigues me, the different ways in which people interpret Arthur and me. None of it is really _us_ , so I’m able to separate myself from it, but I do appreciate that most of it comes from a place of love and also writes Arthur and me as being very loving and affectionate with each other, which I think is true of us and, well, if how we are inspires people to write stories about _love_ , I can think of worse legacies to have in the world.” 

There is a very warm round of applause to this. Arthur can imagine that Twitter is going crazy. 

Meredith just smiles and says, “Flosculations asks, ‘Which judge do you admire the most and why?’”

Misty Rainbow says immediately, “Alec. We should all be so lucky to build as successful and lengthy a career on as little talent.” 

The audience bursts into applause. Eames laughs so hard he actually chokes. 

He’s still recovering from choking when Gon says seriously, “But I think Arthur and Eames have the better career. I mean, I’d rather be knowledgeable and respected and be doing what I love, whatever it is. I always thought that Alec was so unhappy that what he was really scared of was being unhappier, so he clung as hard as he could to the thing that he had, even though that didn’t make him happy.” 

There’s a moment of silence as everyone contemplates this. 

Arthur feels bad. Alec was a fucking asshole who dug his own grave and then basically swan-dived into it, but still, Arthur’s been the unhappy person and he wishes he could have found a way to get Alec to understand that the only thing to do is to turn your back and take a step toward something new, to acknowledge that you won’t find happiness in the same empty place you keep looking. 

Meredith clears her throat to try to shake the melancholy that’s fallen over the stage and says gamely, “Flosculations also asks, ‘What’s the strangest dream you’ve had lately (or ever)?’”

Arthur expects Eames to say something completely insane but he just says, “I dream a lot that I’m someone else. Or, more precisely, I’m still me, but I’m stuck in someone else’s body, or I look like someone else, or something like that. It doesn’t make much sense and I can’t explain it but it’s disconcerting and I’m always relieved to wake up and find that I remain me and still have a beautiful mouth aka Arthur’s favorite body part of mine.” 

“Christ,” sighs Arthur under his breath, and rolls his eyes good-naturedly even while he knows he’s dimpling. 

Eames grins at him and says, “You probably dream of me, don’t you, darling? Every night when you close your eyes, my face haunts you, doesn’t it?” 

“It’s split pretty evenly between you and Sebastian Stan,” Arthur deadpans, to laughter from the crowd. 

Eames also laughs, then says to Meredith, “Arthur doesn’t remember his dreams.” 

“Don’t you?” Meredith asks him. 

Arthur shakes his head. “Not usually. Sometimes I have a vague, lingering impression of a dream, but they’re not vivid to me the way they seem to be to other people.” 

Ariadne says, “I dream of buildings a lot.” 

“An appropriate dream for an interior designer,” Meredith notes. 

Ariadne frowns a little. “I guess. But they’re weird dreams. I don’t know how to explain them.” 

Trizz says, “I dreamed the other night that I bit into a muffin and the muffin started singing ‘Uptown Funk.’”

There’s a moment of silence. 

Arthur finally says, “No one’s going to top that dream, so we should probably just move on.”


	218. Chapter 218

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tonight's Twitter questions come from anonymous submissions I got on Tumblr, which is why Meredith doesn't give any names. I honestly tried to use at least a variation of a question from every single submission I got. Apologies for if I lost track somewhere. We have a couple more questions to get through, too, so if yours hasn't been asked yet, it might be coming!

“The time for you to vote, America, is almost up!” says Meredith cheerfully. “Which means we only have a few more Twitter questions for everyone. And here’s a good one: What is the worst design you’ve ever done?” 

Jess says immediately, “The design I got eliminated for.” 

Trizz says, “Honestly? Almost every design I did for this show. I couldn’t believe how long I lasted, seriously.” 

Eames says, “The very first design I ever did was to paint my bedroom this truly horrific shade of green that called to mind something very unappealing. That was how I learned that paint color can be hard to accurately predict. That was also how I learned that I have terrific parents, because they didn’t say a word and just helped me to paint over the color that night.” 

“That was when you learned you have terrific parents?” says Arthur. 

“Yeah, before that I could basically take or leave them,” grins Eames, and then to the audience, “Love you, Mum and Dad!” 

“Love you, too!” Albert shouts back from the audience. 

“What would be your dream room or place to design?” Meredith asks. 

“I feel like being on this show was my dream place to design,” Sunny says. 

“I would love to be asked to do over a really classic Paris apartment,” says Ariadne. “Just because _Paris_.” 

“Eames, what about you?” Meredith asks. “Any dream place you want to tackle?” 

“Honestly,” says Eames, “I feel like I’ve designed most of the places I would ever want to design. I’ve designed for my parents and for Arthur’s mum and I’ve designed Arthur and me an entire dream house. So I feel like I’ve done everything I might wish to. All of the rest of this is just a bonus.” 

“He should be in an art museum,” Arthur says. “There should be some kind of exhibition on Eames’s interiors. That’s what should be coming next.” 

Eames looks a little embarrassed, and it’s incredibly difficult to embarrass Eames so Arthur is almost proud of himself. 

Meredith says, “So if MoMA came calling, Eames?” 

“I wouldn’t say no,” admits Eames, “but, I mean, _MoMA_.” 

Arthur is aware he’s deeply biased but he still thinks MoMA should be picking up the phone and calling Eames right this very minute. 

“Here’s an interesting question for you, Eames: If you had to team up with one of the contestants, who would it be?”

Eames says without hesitation, “That would depend entirely on the project,” which is such a phenomenal answer that Arthur is fairly sure Eames practiced with these questions even though he claimed not to. 

And, really, this Q&A has all been so much smoother than Arthur expected. Most of the questions he’s recognized, and the couple that have taken him by surprise haven’t been awful. If they’re really almost done, then Arthur can’t believe how beautifully they’ve survived all this. Granted, they lost one entire judge, but he and Eames have pulled through with flying colors. 

“And,” continues Meredith, “what’s your favorite pattern? This one’s for everyone.” 

“Stripes,” says Gon. 

“Checkerboard,” says Ariadne. 

“Toile,” says Sunny. 

“Paisley,” says Eames, and clearly enjoys the _is he joking or serious?_ looks he gets from the contestants. 

“How about for you, Arthur?” Meredith asks playfully. “Pinstripe?”

“Herringbone,” answers Arthur.


	219. Chapter 219

“What is Arthur’s best reaction face?” asks Meredith. 

“All of them,” answers everyone basically simultaneously. 

“This one he’s wearing right now is pretty good,” says Eames, gesturing to Arthur’s face. 

Arthur doesn’t know what his face looks like, but he’s pretty sure the Internet would call it _classic_. 

“Nala147 wants to know: What did you do with the old designs? Did they just get thrown away?”

“No,” says Gon. “We kept some of them.” 

Ariadne adds, “I kept a ton of stuff. Like my couches from the coffee shop design.” 

“I kept the coatrack from the closet challenge,” says Gon. 

“The network kept a bunch of stuff in storage for us,” says Sunny. “Anything we requested basically.”

Trizz says, “The sad thing was there was no real way for us to keep any of the painting we did on the walls.” 

“Such a tragedy, to lose the pornographic sex club murals,” agrees Eames. 

“And my bleeding sheep masterpiece,” says Misty Rainbow. 

Meredith says, “Nala147 also wants to know your opinions on Danish designers.” 

“If you let Eames give his opinion on all designers,” says Arthur, “we’ll be here all night. He could write whole treatises.” 

“I could,” says Eames. “I’ll just boil it down to: brilliant.” 

“Eames,” says Meredith, “how do you know when a design is _right_?” 

“When I stop dreaming about it,” answers Eames. “As long as I’m still dreaming about it, I’m missing some vital detail to the design.” 

“Really?” says Meredith curiously. “Do you really use dreaming in your designs?” 

“Designs,” says Eames, “are nothing but dreams. They ought to be dreams realized.” 

“Arthur,” says Meredith, “I think you’ve mentioned this before but we’ve got another question about it so I just want to make sure: Who’s your tailor?”

“My tailor is a gentleman named Giacomo and he is the best tailor in the entire universe.” 

“We all appreciate Giacomo,” says Eames solemnly. “Let’s have a round of applause for Giacomo, shall we?” The audience claps and whistles enthusiastically, and Eames calls out above the din, “Thank you, Giacomo!” 

Arthur blushes and tries to get Eames to stop goading the crowd. 

“Do you also go to Giacomo?” Meredith asks Eames. 

“No,” answers Eames. “To Arthur’s eternal sorrow. But I adore Giacomo. I would encourage everyone to bring their tailoring to Giacomo except that if Arthur can’t get access to Giacomo easily a dire situation would befall our household, so please don’t swamp Giacomo.” 

“No, no, swamp Giacomo,” Arthur says. “I will cope with the ensuring fashion crisis.” 

“Truly,” Eames tells him, with mock seriousness, “you are an individual with iron determination and limitless capacity for self-sacrifice.” 

“And here’s a question for the contestants,” says Meredith. “If you had to design for another contestant, who would it be and which room would you do?” 

The contestants all look at each other for a second. 

Misty Rainbow says, “I’d design a meditation room for Trizz, because I think his rooms need a calming influence.” 

Ariadne says, “I think I’d design something for Sunny, just because I think it would be fun to design something so fluffy and sweet.” 

Sunny looks vaguely embarrassed as the studio audience aww’s. 

Gon says, “I’d design a bathroom for Ari, because I know she loved my secret room bathroom so much.” 

The audience aww’s even louder for that. 

Arthur, amused, takes advantage of the moment of inattention on him to browse through Twitter. There are a few #gonriadne tweets after Gon’s last statement, but there’s a growing number of tweets asking where Alec is and if he’s coming back. 

_Surely Alec’s not just going to disappear for the rest of the show? I bet that trumpet herald is going to sound any minute now. #nbtfinale_

_Let’s speculate about what hideous outfit Alec will be wearing the next time he shows up. #nbtfinale_

_If I were Alec, I would stay the hell away from this stage. Which means he’s probably going to come back. #nbtfinale_

Arthur reads the tweets with a frown developing. He’d been so confident that Saito orchestrated everything that happened to run Alec out of town that it hadn’t even occurred to him to worry about a return. Part of him feels a little guilty that he was so ready to be rid of Alec that he just went on with the show like it was nothing, but most of him thinks, _Fuck, he had better not show back up here_. 

Eames breathes in his ear, a finger brushing between Arthur’s eyes. “What’s this furrow for?” 

Arthur looks up from his phone. “Do you think Alec’s really gone?” 

Eames’s eyes are very bright and clear in the on-stage lights, and he looks at Arthur steadily and murmurs, “I think he’d better be, because if he shows his face here again I will destroy him.” 

Arthur shakes his head a little bit. “Not for me. I’m fine.” 

“For your mother,” says Eames. 

Arthur is really very desperately in love with Eames, and he knows it, so it always catches him by surprise how continually he can fall even more in love with Eames. It’s like the ground vanishes beneath his feet and he tumbles a little further, a swooping feeling in his stomach. “Fuck, are the cameras on us?” asks Arthur, because he wants to climb into Eames’s lap and kiss him senseless. 

“Probably,” says Eames, but tips a corner of his mouth up and reads his mind. “Do it anyway.” 

Arthur blinks at the obvious tempting invitation that is Eames. 

Meredith says, “Arthur?” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says without taking his eyes off of Eames. 

“Did you want to answer the question?” 

“I didn’t hear the question,” says Arthur, holding Eames’s gaze as he starts loosening his tie. “Is it hot in here? I feel like it’s hot in here.” He draws the tie out of his collar slowly, hearing Eames’s sharp intake of breath above the hissing sound of the fabrics rubbing against each other. Then he turns his attention to Meredith and adopts an innocent tone. “Sorry, what was the question?” 

Meredith raises knowing eyebrows at him and says, “Mendystar1 asks, ‘It seems that you have learned a lot about design alongside the contestants, can you share what you've learned?’”

Arthur considers, then says, “I think mainly I learned that I knew more about design than I ever realized.”


	220. Chapter 220

“We’ve only got one more question,” Meredith says.

Eames murmurs in Arthur’s ear, “And it’s the question of what you’re going to do with that tie now that it’s off of you.” 

“And then we’ll be done with the voting, and then we’ll be crowning America’s next big thing,” continues Meredith. 

Arthur smirks at Eames and loops the tie around Eames’s neck and murmurs back, “Looks good on you.”

Eames leers at him. 

Meredith says, “So if you haven’t gotten your votes in, hurry and do it now, because you don’t have much longer!”

“Not much longer,” Arthur tells Eames, and wraps one end of the tie around his wrist before letting it drop. 

Eames makes a little squeaking sound. 

Meredith says, “Now, before we get to the last few questions, I have been given this very important statement from Alec Hart to read onscreen.” 

This draws Arthur’s attention in a way that nothing else she had been saying has. In fact, it’s attention-grabbing enough to get Arthur’s eyes off of Eames. 

Meredith is reading off a cue card. When, Arthur wonders, was she given that cue card? He hasn’t seen anyone come on-stage to deliver it. Then again, there’s been a pretty lengthy period of time recently when he wasn’t noticing anyone but Eames. 

“I’m very sorry for my disruptive behavior tonight on _Next Big Thing_ ,” Meredith reads. “I thought it best if I recused myself from the rest of the finale. I wish Arthur, Eames, and the contestants all the best. Gon, Ariadne, and Sunny: good luck!” 

Eames leans over so he can whisper in Arthur’s ear. “If Alec wrote that, then I actually am a viscount.” 

“If Alec wrote that, then I actually am a cat,” Arthur hisses in reply. “Seriously, what the fuck happened to Alec?” 

“Life,” Eames says. “It has a way of happening to us all.” 

Arthur just lifts his eyebrows at him, hoping that his face is wearing his unimpressed look. 

“So, last question and it’s for Arthur and Eames,” says Meredith, moving on blithely. “Tea-n-brains asks if _Next Big Thing_ is going to change the dynamic on _Love It or List It_ , and, related to that, finnglas wants to know what your next big thing is going to be. So what’s coming up for you? New _Love It or List It_ format?” 

It’s the feeder moment for their grand announcement. He and Eames have discussed this, and somehow it was decided that Arthur should take the lead. 

So he does. “Actually, we’ve got something completely different coming up. We’re going to have a whole new show, with a whole new format. Basically, Eames and I are going to be a full-service housing service. We will buy and we will sell and we will decorate.” He hopes his little speech doesn’t sound too rehearsed. 

“Ooh,” says Meredith. “That sounds like fun!” 

“It will hopefully be fun and not boring,” says Eames. “But _Next Big Thing_ has really driven home to us that we think the combative format of _Love It or List It_ has started to feel stale and artificial. We don’t think we need conflict to hold interest. We think people will like to watch us work together to make people’s lives better.”

“And we’re in the process of acquiring a fabulous cast and crew to help us do that,” adds Arthur. 

“So the show will basically follow the two of you and your business?” Meredith clarifies. 

Arthur and Eames both nod. 

Meredith says cheekily, “Will the sex club be part of it?” 

“No,” says Eames, “sex clubs have a lot of confidentiality provisions, you should honestly see the paperwork. But there will probably be requisite climbing shots because I appreciate them, too, America.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

Meredith says, “So we’ll have to keep an eye out for your new show. What’s it going to be called?” 

And Arthur’s supposed to say _Banter_ , but he hates that name and just can’t bring himself to. He says instead, “That’s still under discussion.” 

Eames gives him an amused look. “Absolutely. But my vote is ‘Two Really Hot Men Do Things with Houses.’ Let us hear about it, Twitter. Good title?” 

“Please go online and tell Eames that’s a horrible title,” says Arthur. 

“At least people would know what to expect when they tune in,” Meredith points out, like that’s totally a reasonable name for a television show. 

Arthur gives her a look. 

Meredith grins and says, “We’ve reached that time when the voting is closed and in and counted and we need to announce the winner of _Next Big Thing_! Right after this commercial break.”


	221. Chapter 221

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thing happens in this chapter. I could not for the life of me remember if this thing had already happened in this fic. I tried to go back in the fic to see if it had happened, but I couldn't find it, but then again, how could you find a negative, and so WHO REALLY KNOW except for probably you in the comment party so...yeah. 
> 
> Also, I got a request to re-post the URL of the chatroom: inceptionfandom.campfirenow.com/dd008
> 
> The chatroom is always open. There may not always be people in it but you are always invited to pop in and check!
> 
> (Also, the winner isn't announced tonight. That's going to be tomorrow night. If you want to plan a suitable celebration.)

Julia comes out for the commercial break but she just stands in front of them looking solemn. 

Finally Eames says, “Julia, poppet, just how drunk are you right now?” 

“I’m feeling very emotional about all of this being over,” says Julia, and then bursts into tears. 

Which is probably why Eames says, “It’s okay, you can be the makeup artist on our new show.” 

This immediately stops Julia crying. “Wait, what?” 

Arthur gives Eames a dry look, because they had agreed not to worry about the staffing for the new show until after the Virgin Islands trip. 

Eames says to defend himself, “She was _crying_ , darling.” 

“Oh!” exclaims Julia, and hugs each of them tightly in turn. “You guys are the best, and you introduced me to Paul, and I just love you kind of a lot, okay?” 

“You’re very drunk,” Eames points out. “And, frankly, I’m finding it very unfair right now.” 

“It’s been great getting to know you,” says Julia solemnly. “And I look forward to getting to know you more. And Sebastian Stan.” 

“We don’t know Sebastian Stan,” Arthur informs her. 

“Yeah, but that’s what you’d say if you knew Sebastian Stan,” Julia notes. 

“Can’t argue with that,” Eames tells Arthur. 

“Also, our co-judge disappeared off the stage,” Arthur says, just to remind everyone of that. 

“I’ve got to go talk to Ari and Gon and Sunny, see how they’re holding up,” says Julia, and moves off. 

“Probably Saito’s going to write him out of the history books,” Arthur remarks. “It’ll be like he never existed.” 

“Who?” 

“Alec.” 

“Who’s that?” 

“You’re hilarious,” Arthur tells him. 

Eames grins at him. “I know.” He ducks his head so he can talk against Arthur’s ear. “And I am going to fuck you up against the nearest wall as soon as we’re done here.” 

“Oh, excellent,” says Arthur, “that’s what I was hoping for.” 

Eames chuckles and rests his hand lightly on the back of Arthur’s neck and Arthur is fairly sure a pretty fabulous kiss is about to happen except that Meredith says, “I am _so_ sorry to interrupt.” 

“Five more minutes,” Eames breathes into Arthur’s ear, and then moves away and smiles at Meredith. “Not at all. What’s up?” 

“I just wanted to thank you two for being really good sports and really amazing professionals in light of everything that happened tonight.” 

“I feel like that’s the understatement of the century,” Eames remarks. “We all deserve every sodding award in the universe for pulling this show off.” 

“Tell me about it,” Meredith agrees. 

“So he’s really not coming back?” Arthur says. “He’s not going to swoop in here with a trumpet fanfare with a minute to spare?”

“Not that I know of,” Meredith says. “Then again, I guess this night has been full of surprises.” Meredith smiles brightly at them, then moves away. 

“Not reassuring,” notes Eames. 

Arthur sighs and looks across at the contestants. Julia’s apparently done with them, and they’re mainly sitting and not speaking. 

“Should we go talk to them?” Arthur asks Eames. “Or will that make it worse?” 

“We might as well go sit with them, I think. It’s the last couple of minutes of this show we met them all on, we should all be together for it.” 

Eames stands, but Arthur grabs at his hand and says, “This show has genuinely changed my life. For the better. You know that, right?” 

“Darling,” says Eames, and leans forward and cups the back of Arthur’s head and presses a kiss to his temple. “You have extraordinarily eloquent eyes when you look at me. Don’t fret about what you can’t put into words. I already know.”


	222. Chapter 222

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who voted! 
> 
> And thanks to katiewont for suggesting there should be a trophy!

They sit with the contestants.

Arthur says, “Would a speech of platitudes about how awesome you all are and how it doesn’t matter who wins really help right now?” 

They all seem to consider. 

Ariadne says, “Probably not.” 

Sunny says, “It was nice of you to try.” 

“I think we should all focus on exactly how much we’re going to drink at the upcoming after-party,” remarks Eames. 

“I think we should all focus on how I’m going to sleep for a million years once this is all over,” says Ariadne, sounding wistful about the prospect. 

“Me, too,” Arthur agrees fervently. He’s not sure he’s ever felt as exhausted in his life. 

They start counting them in from commercial. 

Ariadne says suddenly, “This felt like it took forever to get here and now I can’t believe it’s here.” She turns to them abruptly. “I’ve had a lot of fun on this show with you guys.” 

“I know,” Sunny says, sniffling, and she and Ariadne hug tightly. 

Eames says to Gon, “Do you need a hug, too? Maybe I can track down Alec wherever he’s disappeared to.”

“I’m good, thanks,” says Gon. 

“You all have bright futures ahead of you,” Eames says seriously. “I promise.” 

And then Meredith says, “And, for the last time, welcome back to the _Next Big Thing_ live finale! We have had quite a journey up to this point, and that’s just thinking about what’s happened in the past couple of hours! That’s not even counting everything that these three contestants have been through to lead them here, to this moment, one of them about to be crowned America’s Next Big Thing.”

Gon and Ariadne and Sunny all clasp hands and try to look slightly less nervous than they are. 

Meredith says, “But before we get there, I just need to remind you about _my_ new show. You might be wondering why I’ve been wearing a toga this whole time! Well, who has toga parties? Bachelors, that’s who! And my new show is _Designing for Singles_! Coming soon!” 

Arthur thinks that this network is the worst at naming shows. Arthur also thinks that Meredith needs an entirely new marketing team. Saito would shoot Meredith’s marketing team, thinks Arthur. And probably salt the earth they fell on. 

“And with that little bit of promotion out of the way,” says Meredith, “now we can finally reach the moment you all have been waiting for. You’ve witnessed their journeys, and you’ve seen their final designs, and you’ve voted for your favorite, and now I can announce that America’s Next Big Thing is…” 

There is an actual drumroll. 

And then Meredith shouts, “Ariadne!”

The stage erupts into chaos, the audience cheering and whistling, the other contestants shouting with glee, confetti falling from the ceiling and triumphant-sounding music blaring. There is a general pile of contestants swarming over Ariadne, so that Arthur has no hope of getting near her. But he’s happy, because she deserved it. 

So did Gon and Sunny, though, too, but they don’t seem too disappointed, both in the crowd of people offering congratulations. 

Meredith fights her way to get through the crowd with a truly ridiculous trophy in tow and tries to interview Ariadne, who looks pleased and shocked and staggers under the weight of the trophy, which Gon graciously helps her with, but there’s so much ambient noise that finally Meredith just shouts over the din, “That’s all we have time for! Thanks for watching!” 

“Are we done?” Arthur asks, looking at Eames. “Are we really fucking done?” 

“We’re done,” says Eames, grinning, and hooks his fingers into Arthur’s belt loops, drawing him in. 

“We’re probably still being filmed.” 

“Probably. Want to give America a show?”

“Fuck, yes,” says Arthur, and kisses Eames and kisses him and kisses him and thinks about the rest of their lives.


	223. Chapter 223

They’re supposed to be on their way to the after-party, which Arthur knows there is no way they are making on time because Eames’s hands have basically taken up residence in the pockets of Arthur’s trousers and he’s glued to Arthur’s side. 

He shouts across to Ariadne, “Congratulations!” 

“Thank you!” she shouts back. 

“Do you know when you’re going to talk to Ariadne?” Eames asks, tugging Arthur along behind him. 

“When?” Arthur asks. 

“After,” growls Eames eloquently, and swings Arthur into what is legitimately a storage closet. There is literally a broom that clatters over when Eames presses him back against the door. 

Arthur finds that unspeakably hot, but that might just be the entire night catching up with them. 

Eames says, “Fuck,” thickly and claws Arthur’s collar out of the way so that he can suck a mark onto the base of his throat. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” Arthur says breathlessly, pulling at Eames’s belt and jeans until he can get a hand around him. 

Eames hisses a breath and arches into Arthur’s touch and says, “I am going to last three bloody seconds here _fuck_.” 

“Uh-huh,” mumbles Arthur into Eames’s neck, stroking. “Good. Because we’re supposed to be at a party.” 

“Fucking smug,” mutters Eames, “I’m going to make you come in your sodding pants,” and presses his hand against the front of Arthur’s trousers with brutal knowing talent. 

Arthur gasps, hips stuttering, and manages, “Giacomo would fucking kill you.” 

“Giacomo would rejoice in the streets when I have to go and buy you another suit,” Eames corrects him, and then, “You’ve lost your rhythm, kitten,” which is true, because Arthur’s grown distracted with Eames’s hand. 

“Fuck,” Arthur says, banging his head back against the door, because he’s torn between wanting to get off immediately and knowing that they have a _fucking party_ to go to and they should perhaps pay attention to the state they leave themselves in. 

“Fuck, I would love that,” says Eames into Arthur’s ear. “Right up against this door, and I would make you _filthy_ , and then you’d go out into that party and socialize like the fucking professional you are, unspeakably sordid.” 

Arthur shudders and decides Eames is too fucking coherent right now. 

He flips their positions, taking Eames by surprise enough that he’s able to press him up against the door, and then he drops to his knees and swallows him down and Eames goes off like a shot. 

Arthur catches all of it and then cocks an eyebrows up at Eames. It’s too dark for Eames to be able to see his expression but he surely hears the drollness in Arthur’s tone when he says, “That was easy.” 

“I told you, you bloody fucking seductress,” says Eames, sounding exhausted in the wake of the orgasm. 

“A seductress is female,” Arthur tells him. 

“Shut up and let me get you off,” Eames says. 

“So romantic,” says Arthur. 

“I’m going to keep your suit fucking spotless,” Eames promises him. 

“Now, see, _that’s_ a turn-on,” Arthur says breathlessly, as Eames pulls him up and presses him back against the door.

Arthur is expecting Eames to sink to his knees immediately, but instead Eames pauses, face in front of him, still breathing hard, his exhalations along Arthur’s lips.

Arthur breathes with him for a moment, trying to be patient, and then wonders if Eames is waiting for him to beg. “What?” he whispers. 

Eames shakes his head a little bit. Arthur senses it, can just about make out the silhouette of it in the dark. Then Eames says hoarsely, “I love you,” and kisses him, hard, licking into his mouth. He must be able to taste himself, and Arthur moans and arches his hips restlessly. 

“I know, darling,” Eames mumbles. 

“Fuck, I want you so much,” says Arthur, catching Eames’s lips in frantic little nips. “I’ve wanted you so much all night.” 

“That’s your fucking slow burn,” says Eames. 

Arthur shakes his head desperately, meeting Eames’s teasing strokes. They’re not nearly enough to bring him off, and Arthur knows Eames knows that. “The slow burn was to distract myself from how much I wanted you.”

“Your behavior tonight was the opposite of how you behave when you’re trying to distract yourself from sex,” remarks Eames, and _finally_ drops to his knees and after that things are mostly just white static in Arthur’s head and the heat of Eames engulfing him and the feel of Eames’s hair crushed between Arthur’s fingers and the door solidly at Arthur’s back and the possibility that he shouts when he climaxes.


	224. Chapter 224

Places Arthur did not expect to be directly after the _Next Big Thing_ finale: curled up with Eames against a storage closet door. 

Places Arthur wants to be at that moment: curled up with Eames against a storage closet door. 

“Are you sleeping?” Eames asks.

Arthur grunts something that could go either way. 

“We’re supposed to be at a party.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “I know.” 

“Do you want to just stay here all night?” 

“Uh-huh,” says Arthur, and snuggles a little harder. 

“Okay,” Eames agrees affably. 

“Do you think anyone will think to come look for us?” 

“Probably not. Your mother’s probably making out with Saito.” 

“Thanks, Eames.” 

“And my parents just assume we have sex any moment we don’t spend with them.” 

This wakes Arthur up a little bit. He lifts his head and wishes he could see Eames more clearly. “Why do they think that?” 

“Because of your feral sexuality, darling,” Eames replies. 

“Fucking feral sexuality,” Arthur grumbles, laying his head back down. 

“Yes, yours is a difficult burden to bear, it’s true,” says Eames. “You definitely tried really hard to keep your feral sexuality in check tonight.” 

“I couldn’t help it,” says Arthur. “You were so impossibly attractive all night.” 

“Liar,” says Eames. “I’m always impossibly attractive, you should always be endlessly seducing me, there was nothing unusually irresistible about my attractiveness tonight as opposed to every other night.”

“How do I ever manage to think of things other than sex with you?” asks Arthur thoughtfully. 

“A mystery I frequently ponder,” says Eames. 

“We need to go to the party,” Arthur says regretfully. “We need to talk to Ari and Gon and Sunny and everyone else. We need to, I don’t know, say good-bye.” 

“Fine,” says Eames. “Let’s go be social.” He doesn’t move. 

“We also need showers,” Arthur notes. 

“Well, we’re in a storage closet. I suppose we could roll around in bleach or something.” 

“That’s a terrible idea. I want to make sure that you know that: Never roll around in bleach.” 

“Got it,” Eames assures him.

“Also, never lose your head and fuck in a storage closet when you’re supposed to be at a party.” 

Eames snorts. “Are you kidding me? Best idea we ever had, this one. Lifelong fantasy of mine. I think fucking in a storage closet is a five-star experience.” 

“My leg is cramping because it’s stuck in a bucket,” notes Arthur.


	225. Chapter 225

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got lots of great suggestions for the whiteboard issue. I kept terrible track of who suggested what. I see that MonaLisa definitely suggested Scott's solution at one point, but I feel like other people did, too. So, THANKS TO ALL OF YOU.

They are somewhat less put together than Arthur generally likes to be in public but when they get to the after-party—which is being held at the usual _Next Big Thing_ set instead of the special finale set—Arthur realizes it isn’t going to matter. Because wow, does everyone seem very, very drunk. 

He gets separated from Eames almost immediately, and when he’s in line at the bar waiting to get some champagne he encounters Ariadne. “Congratulations,” he shouts at her over the driving beat of the deejay that’s playing and the drunken whooping of all the other guests. 

“Arthur!” exclaims Ariadne with drunken over-enthusiasm. “ _Arthur_!” She hugs him tightly. “You are the _best_ , Arthur, okay? Have I told you you’re the best? Does Eames tell you you’re the best? If he doesn’t tell you you’re the best, I’m going to have to beat him up, okay?” 

Arthur thinks he might not bet against Ariadne in a fight. He says, “He tells me I’m the best.” 

“Good. Listen. I have a secret for you, Arthur.” Ariadne gestures him close. 

Amused, Arthur complies. 

“I’m so happy,” she shout-whispers at him, “I think I’m going to go kiss Gon. Do you think that’s a good idea?” 

Arthur smiles. “I think it’s a good idea,” he tells her, and accepts another hug, and then hopes that he hasn’t led her very drunken self astray. 

While he’s pondering that and still waiting for his champagne, Mal swoops down upon him and also hugs him fiercely and says, “Arthur, my lovely, _merci_!” 

“You’re very welcome,” Arthur assures her, “but it was just my job.”

“We will probably never see each other again,” Mal tells him, with the intense solemnity of the very drunk. “Unless I haunt your dreams.” 

“That’s…okay,” says Arthur. 

“ _Au revoir_ ,” says Mal, and drifts off. 

Arthur’s next encounter waits until he’s procured champagne. 

Meredith bears down on him, blessedly changed out of that fucking toga, and says, “What the fuck, was that your _life_? That was exhausting.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur says, because it’s basically the only thing he can think of to say in response. All other words would be inadequate. The rest of the experience on _Next Big Thing_ is indescribable. 

Meredith says, “I find you guys very inspiring, though. I’m going to push back more. With the network. On everything.” 

“Good for you,” says Arthur. Pushing back with the network is the smartest thing he and Eames ever did for their careers, he thinks. And he hopes he’s not being too crazy with all the advice he’s handing out right now. 

Someone shouts his name, and when he looks it’s Misty Rainbow waving him over. 

Meredith says, “Go ahead. I’m going to try to see how serious Mal’s relationship with Cobb is.” 

Misty Rainbow says to him happily when he comes over to her, “These are my parents.” 

They look like very normal and conventional parents who seem very normally and conventionally proud of their daughter, and Arthur can’t help that he feels a great deal of affection toward them. 

“Your daughter’s very talented,” he informs them. 

“You’ve been very kind to her,” Misty Rainbow’s father says. “We appreciate that.” 

Arthur opens his mouth to say something else, which is when Eames comes bounding over like a Labrador retriever, shouting for him. 

“Darling! Scott has already had the best idea about the whiteboard! Tell him, Scott.” 

Scott looks a bit bewildered. “You could just use glass for—”

“We could just use _glass_ , darling!” Eames shouts enthusiastically. 

Arthur marvels at how much Eames has apparently managed to have to drink already. Clearly Eames chose a less crowded bar to acquire his champagne at. 

“Yeah,” says Arthur, amused. “I got that.” 

“ _Glass_ ,” says Eames. “Scott is a genius. You are a genius, Scott.” 

“And yet not the winner of _Next Big Thing_ ,” Scott points out good-naturedly. 

“But you still have value,” says Eames, very seriously. 

Was Eames doing _shots_ somewhere? Arthur wonders. Eames holds his liquor ridiculously well, after all. He wants to laugh at Eames for a thousand years and kiss him senseless for double that period of time. 

“Look, Eames, these are Misty Rainbow’s parents,” Arthur says, nudging Eames so he can notice them. 

“Hello!” Eames says, transferring his Scott-inspired whiteboard enthusiasm onto them effortlessly, shaking their hands. “Your daughter is such a delight. She has the best way of sighing Arthur’s name.” 

“Also, her designs,” Arthur prompts. 

“Oh, my God, her designs are so unique and original. She’s going to make a mint off of designing for spas.” 

Misty Rainbow’s parents look like they don’t really know what to make of Eames but they’re inclined toward the positive. 

“And this is Scott,” Arthur introduces. 

“And I was totally in love with your daughter’s meditation room,” Scott says gallantly, shaking Misty Rainbow’s parents’ hands. He throws an affectionate arm over Misty Rainbow’s shoulder, and Misty Rainbow smiles, and it’s nice to see her so relaxed and, well, happy. 

Arthur is feeling like he wants everyone in the universe to be happy at that moment. Maybe even Alec Hart, wherever he might be. 

And then he spots their parents over Eames’s shoulder, waving. 

“Excuse me,” he says hastily, and leaves Eames to his socializing to accept hugs and kisses from Eames’s parents. 

“Good of you to join us,” Maggie says, giving him a knowing look, and fixes his collar. 

“Well done, mate,” Albert says jovially, clapping him on the back, and Arthur isn’t entirely sure he’s referring to the successful completion of the finale. 

Arthur clears his throat self-consciously. “Did you enjoy yourselves?” 

“Arthur,” Maggie says seriously, “that was utterly mad.” 

“Yes,” says Arthur. “Well.” Then he shrugs, because what more is there to say? “Can I borrow my mother for a second?”

“Of course,” chorus Maggie and Albert, and Arthur moves a short distance away with her. 

“Arthur—” she starts, but he cuts her off by hugging her fiercely. “Okay,” she says, sounding a little bewildered, and hugs him back. 

He pulls back a little bit to say, “Are you alright?” 

“Yes,” she says. “Are you?” 

He nods and hugs her again, less fiercely this time, more just for the comfort of having her there to be able to hug. 

“It was quite the finale,” his mother remarks. 

Arthur laughs. “Understatement,” he says, and releases her. She _does_ look well, he thinks. Not at all upset about what Alec said. She looks flushed and sparkle-eyed and happy. Everyone in the world happy, thinks Arthur. 

“Did _you_ enjoy yourself?” she asks him. 

Even with all of the craziness with Alec, yes, he did have fun. Especially given the storage closet epilogue. So he smiles and says, “Yeah.” 

“That was fascinating to watch. Your job is amazing.” 

“Most television is not like that,” Arthur assures her wryly. 

“Most television doesn’t have you.” She beams at him, like she honestly believes that. 

Arthur feels his blush in reaction. “Listen,” he says, “I’ve been meaning to say. About Saito—”

“Arthur, it’s nothing—”

“It’s good, Mom. I mean, you shouldn’t care what I think, not really, because it’s your life, and you should do what makes you happy, but in case you were worried: It’s good. I’m good. He’s good. As long as he makes you happy, right? Does he make you happy?” 

His mother doesn’t answer the question. His mother says, “He’s your agent, Arthur, and if it—”

“That just means Eames is going to gloat about being a brilliant matchmaker for the rest of the time. Do you like Saito?” It seems a little elementary-school to him, to be asking this question, but he wants to know. 

“Yes?” she says after a moment, hesitantly. “I mean, I think I do. I barely know him, but…yes.” 

“Yeah, it takes a little processing time for us,” Arthur agrees with a smile, because it’s true. Eames knew right away, but Arthur worried over it for so much longer. Even if Eames was the one who also did the most sabotaging of it. Just because Eames knew right away didn’t mean he isn’t also an idiot. “For what it’s worth, I do think that he might really like you, so yeah. If he makes you happy, I am entirely on-board. I am on-board with everything that makes you happy. So if you were worrying about that, for even a second, please don’t.” 

His mother, after a moment, cups a hand along his cheek and says, eyes shining, “Thank you.” 

“Mom, I am doing what any decent human being would—”

She shakes her head a little. “Thank you for making our house a home. You think it was all me. I think it was both of us. You thanked me tonight, so I’m thanking you in return.” 

Arthur has been very emotional all night and this isn’t helping matters. He pulls his mother in for another hug and squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on taking a deep breath and not crying. He thinks about how his mother made all the difference in his life, in his _world_ , how having her is something he cannot imagine doing without, even though he knows he will have to someday, and he just wants to appreciate her as much as he can now. 

He thinks all of this but what he says is, “Just don’t tell me any dragon details about Saito, okay?” 

“Dragon details?” his mother echoes blankly.


	226. Chapter 226

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Chocolamousse originally suggested the show name Julia suggests here.

“Honestly,” Julia is saying, “you should just call your new show ‘Sexual Code.’”

“We’re not going to call our new show Sexual Code,” Arthur says patiently. He has been drinking much less than everyone else, partly because he’s a lightweight to begin with and partly because he wants to be mostly sober for the surprise he still has for Eames later. 

“Why not?” asks Julia. “That’s what it’ll be about anyway.” 

“Not everything we say is a sexual code,” Arthur insists. 

“Only most things,” Eames manages to mumble coherently enough for people to understand, a feat considering he’s been nuzzling aimlessly at Arthur’s collarbone for a while now. 

“Yeah, Exhibit A: E&A time.” Julia gives them a look as if that proves they are always speaking in code. 

Arthur and Eames and Julia have colonized a corner of the room. Eames is draped half over him, clearly slightly worse for wear, although Arthur suspects more of that is an adrenaline crash from everything being over than it is actual drunkenness. Eames hasn’t suggested they dance, which Arthur attributes to exhaustion on Eames’s part, because if Eames was just drunk, he’d be all over getting them out on the dancefloor. 

From their vantage point, Arthur can look out over all the die-hards still at the party. Albert is dancing with Sunny in a way that has Sunny blushing. Maggie is in a very intense conversation with Trizz. Arthur’s mother is in a discussion group with Misty Rainbow and Misty Rainbow’s parents and Jess, and Arthur would love to know what they’re talking about. Meredith is deep in conversation with Yusuf. Mal has kicked off her shoes and is dancing by herself while Cobb looks awkward beside her. Ariadne and Gon, meanwhile, are enthusiastically making out in the opposite corner. 

Julia says, “Good for them,” and drains her champagne glass. “I was rooting for them. And you guys, of course. Always rooting for you guys.” 

“Armes five-ever,” says Eames against Arthur’s skin. 

“Hear, hear!” says Julia, and then, “Honey, there you are with more champagne!” and pulls Paul in happily. 

Arthur smiles at them. “Meanwhile, we were rooting for you guys.” 

“So you can gloat,” says Julia. 

“That was mainly Eames. He’s mainly the one who gloats.” 

“Paul, what the fuck,” Eames complains belligerently. 

Paul looks alarmed. “Uh-oh.” 

“You don’t want to have a threesome with us?” Eames lifts his head away from Arthur so he can gesture to him better. “Look at us. Would we not make an awesome threesome?” 

“You’re only two people,” Julia points out. “A threesome is three people.” 

“Maths,” Eames says shortly. “That’s _maths_.”

“Why are we talking about threesomes?” asks Paul. “Is this some sex club thing? Do you want to have a threesome?” 

“Would you be into that?” asks Eames seriously. 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. 

“I’m not saying we’d actually _do_ it,” says Eames. 

Paul says uncertainly, like he’s not sure what’s going on, “I…don’t really want to have a threesome…” 

“What about if we were Sebastian Stan?” Eames demands. 

“Well, that’s different,” Paul says. “That’s Sebastian Stan.” 

“You have bad taste in men, Paul,” Eames says. 

“You told me I should date Sebastian Stan if you die,” Arthur reminds him. 

“Exactly! If I die! After me! You should go for me first!” 

“We don’t actually want to have a threesome,” Arthur tells Paul. 

Paul looks relieved. “Okay, that’s good.” 

“Unless it’s with Sebastian Stan, whose number I’m getting from Meredith,” says Julia and grins at Paul. 

Paul kind of rolls his eyes a little bit as he smiles back at Julia and Arthur has a sudden flash of intuition as to how their relationship works. 

Eames must as well because Eames hums a little and brushes a kiss behind Arthur’s ear and Arthur can tell his lips are curved into a smile. 

Arthur says, “By the way. That blender question.” 

“Yeah,” Julia says. “What the hell was that question?” 

“Eames’s answer,” says Arthur, “should have been: ‘Come up with a daring plan and tell Paul to make it happen.’”

Paul and Eames both laugh. 

“And then,” says Paul, “I would explain the laws of physics.” 

“And then,” says Eames, “I would call Arthur to complain about the laws of physics.” 

“‘Darling, do you know that you cannot just float out of a blender because of _gravity_?’” says Arthur, in a decent imitation of Eames. 

Everyone laughs. 

Arthur kisses the tip of Eames’s nose fondly. 

“And what do you say when you get a call like that, Arthur?” Paul asks. “I’ve always wondered.” 

“I say, ‘Eames, you may be a really great boyfriend but you do not understand science.’”

“No, you sigh and roll your eyes,” Eames says. 

“Sometimes I also say that you’re a really great boyfriend.”

“Yes,” says Eames. “You do.” 

“With a good accent,” adds Julia. 

“Basically all I have going for me,” Eames agrees. 

Saito says, “Ah, this looks so cozy. Hello. I’m Saito.” He extends his hand to Paul and then to Julia. 

Eames says, startled, “Where did you come from?” 

Saito lifts his eyebrows as if the question is nonsensical. 

“Arthur,” he says, “I thought perhaps we might talk.” 

Arthur is surprised by this and feels a little nervous and wonders if he did something wrong and then tells himself to get a grip and he’s a grown-up, not a kid being called to the principal’s office. 

“Okay,” Arthur agrees, trying not to sound uncertain. He says to Eames, “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone.” 

“Where would be the fun in that, darling?” replies Eames.


	227. Chapter 227

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you for your inspiring ideas for the conversation in this chapter!

Arthur follows Saito out of the party room, down the hall a little bit, where it’s much quieter. 

Saito says casually, “Your surprise for Eames is all in order, I trust?” 

“How do you know about that?” asks Arthur, wondering if Ariadne is _that_ terrible about keeping secrets. 

Saito doesn’t answer. Saito turns on him and says, “I sense you have many questions.” 

“Yeah,” agrees Arthur. “Starting with what happened to Alec.” 

Saito blinks at him evenly and says, “You witnessed what happened to him.” 

“And then he disappeared.” 

“Doubtless to consult with his attorneys about his flagrant breaching of the non-disclosure agreement by which he wasn’t supposed to reveal that he’s a fraud. One would think one wouldn’t need a contractual promise to ensure that one would conceal one’s fraudulent nature, but one would not be accounting for the inexplicable nature of Alec Hart. He did send a lovely apology for his absence.” 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow and says sarcastically, “Uh-huh. Why would the network hire such a fraud, anyway?” 

“He predates you and Eames, you know. The network did not always have such quality programming. Indeed, you two were the beginning of a renaissance. It was partly why you were able to dictate such favorable terms for your new show.” 

Arthur supposes that makes some sense. Maybe the network hadn’t realized they could have a successful television personality who was also a talented designer. Maybe the network hadn’t realized they didn’t have to pander to the lowest common denominator. 

Arthur says, “Okay, so what was the deal with the Hanover thing. Bobby Hanover?” 

“His name. Before he was Alec Hart.” 

“I gathered that much. But what did Bobby Hanover _do_?”

“Absolutely nothing, Arthur,” replies Saito. “Which is exactly why Alec Hart despised him so.” 

Arthur thinks about despising _yourself_ that much, and frankly can’t imagine it. For all that he used to panic that he didn’t really deserve all of the good things around him, that he was faking all of it and someone would surely notice and all the balls he was juggling would come crashing down, he’d never actually hated himself. It was the one truth he’d tried so desperately to cling to when he had been lonely: that he was, somehow, worthwhile; that he _had_ to be. But then again, he’d had his mother, and maybe Alec hadn’t had someone like that. 

Arthur’s head hurts thinking about it. He pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “I don’t _get_ it, though. Alec had the career he wanted. Why jeopardize it all that way?” 

“Why did Icarus fly too close to the sun?” counters Saito. 

Which is a frustrating response, because Arthur just doesn’t _get_ how someone can get what they want and then throw it away by being greedy. That has always been one of Arthur’s main worries, that he not get _greedy_ and thereby lose what he has. Arthur says, “But what was the _point_? What did he think was going to happen? What was he even building up to, with all of that stuff about Eames being the love of his life or whatever?” 

Saito shrugs. “Who is to say? Perhaps he was going to propose marriage to Eames. Perhaps he was going to propose marriage to _you_. Perhaps he was going to say he was pregnant with Eames’s baby.”

Arthur gives Saito a look. 

“Arthur,” Saito says patiently, “we will never be able to comprehend Alec Hart. But we don’t need to. Have you had a good time tonight?” 

“Yes,” Arthur answers honestly. 

“Has anyone brought up Alec Hart to you?” 

“No,” Arthur says. “It’s like they’ve all forgotten about him.”

“They haven’t forgotten. They just don’t care. He wasn’t the most important thing about the finale. And that’s the worst thing that can happen to a person like Alec Hart: to not be important. To not be talked about. To have people _just not care_. Let him go, Arthur. Everything about him is over now. Will he reinvent himself? Come back as someone else? Perhaps. His kind often do. But what will that matter to you?” 

Nothing, Arthur thinks. It will matter nothing to him. He and Eames will be…engaged, or married, or something, and busy with their new show, and their lives together, and eventually, someday, ten years from now, or twenty, maybe, someone will do a retrospective on That Time _Next Big Thing_ Was a Runaway Hit, and they’ll say, _Remember Alec Hart?_ and he’ll say, _Oh, wow, I haven’t thought about him in years._

“Enjoy it,” says Saito. “Because here you are, landed on your feet.” 

Arthur blinks, startled by this recall to a speech that Saito can’t possibly know about. Right? 

“I’ll admit,” says Saito, after a second of Arthur gaping at him in astonishment, “I didn’t think that was what you would have questions about.” 

Arthur stops thinking about Alec Hart. Just…stops. And realizes. “Oh,” he says. “If this is about my mother, I really don’t mind. I mean, I’m assuming that you are, of course, going to be very good to her and make her happy and all of that, but we’re adults and it doesn’t really matter what I think but I think all good things.” 

Saito, after a moment, says solemnly, “Of course it matters what you think, in that I would naturally wish your good opinion. You may think that this has all happened very quickly.” 

Arthur says, “It’s happened quickly for my personality type. Eames would tell you that you’re right on schedule.” 

“I already knew I would like your mother, you see,” Saito continues. “I knew she must be a remarkable woman, because I knew very well the remarkable son she managed to raise.”


	228. Chapter 228

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the CP for the idea that Sunny might be a sex club madam underneath it all. I think flosculatory floated that idea first.

When Arthur gets back to the party, Maggie is singing. Singing really well, too. She’s got a gorgeous voice. The remaining partygoers are gathered around her, cheering her on. Albert looks so proud he could burst. And Saito walks over to Arthur’s mother and gives her a courtly little bow over her hand and Arthur’s mother beams like the sun at him. 

Eames says, “You’re looking off-balance, darling,” and tugs him in and puts his chin on his shoulder. 

“It’s been a long night,” says Arthur. 

“It’s been a long season,” says Eames, and tucks his face against Arthur’s neck. “Let’s go home. Our parents can be the lives of the party and straggle home in a cab. Or go to Saito’s. You know, whatever. Let’s you and I go home and get into bed with each other and banter until we fall asleep.” 

“We can’t,” Arthur says. 

“I might be too tired for anything more energetic than that, darling.” 

“I’ve got a surprise for you.” 

“Is it in your pants?” 

“No, because I don’t specialize in cheap double entendres.” 

“Shut up,” says Eames, “cheap double entendres are hot and you love them.” 

“I love you,” Arthur says, and kisses his cheek fondly. “Come see your surprise.” 

Eames lifts his head and cocks his head at Arthur. “You really have a surprise for me?” 

Arthur nods. 

Understanding dawns on Eames’s face. “Wait, is this whatever you’ve been planning with Ariadne all this time?” 

“Come and see,” Arthur repeats patiently, and tugs on Eames’s hand. 

Eames allows himself to be led away from the party, down the hall to the room Mal allowed Arthur the use of. It had belonged to one of the early-departed designers, so it was perfect for Arthur’s purposes. 

Arthur takes a deep breath and takes the key to the room out of his pocket. 

Eames lifts his eyebrows at him, looking like he’s dying of curiosity. Which Arthur gets, because he’s not actually one to set up surprises. Although he always wishes that he was, because Eames adores surprises. 

Arthur hands him the key. “Go ahead,” he says. “You can do the honor.” 

Eames hums at the door consideringly. “Can I try to guess first?” 

“Sure,” Arthur says indulgently. 

“I’m hoping there’s a sheep behind this door.” 

“I think I’m alarmed that that’s what you guessed,” says Arthur. 

“Baa,” Eames says, grinning, and kisses below Arthur’s jaw, and then he puts the key in the door and opens it. 

He has to flip on the lights to see. The lights themselves are on a dimmer, but Eames turns them all the way up. Sleek chrome chandeliers with bits of mirror dangling off of them, so that the light hits them and reflects all around the room. It’s a dazzling effect, and it had been Ariadne’s idea, so Arthur isn’t surprised that he loves it. 

Then again, he loves everything about the room. He loves the double chaises longues that Gon chose, all of them surrounded by curtains that could be drawn, the curtains of various levels of gauziness and transparency, including some completely opaque ones. The color scheme is pattern-heavy, leaning toward deep reds (Misty Rainbow said it was the most sexually arousing color) and dark blues because Gon and Ariadne both insisted that the deep reds be toned down a bit. 

Sunny contributed a series of practical storage solutions along one wall that all of the designers piled high with condoms and lube and various sex toys, and Eames draws a hand along the array of buckets and window boxes and canvas bags that have been nailed to the wall, peeking into them, and then he turns to Arthur, his face split into a grin of huge delight, his kid-on-Christmas-morning look. 

“You had them design us a _sex club_?” he asks. 

Arthur smiles at him. 

“Darling, it’s genius,” Eames enthuses. “Isn’t it genius? Is this an entire fucking corner over here?” Eames falls backward onto the expanse of round mattress that they sank directly into the floor. All around it curls a sinuous curly-cue design painted in black. Eames brushes a hand over it and Arthur sees him smile when he catches that it’s been worked into with subtle A’s and E’s. 

“Sunny did this part of the design,” Arthur tells him, standing over him and looking down at him. 

“Sunny?” Eames repeats. “This is the sexiest fucking embellishment I’ve ever seen. There is more to Sunny than meets the eye.” 

“That’s what Ari said, too, when she saw what Sunny had designed.” 

“Darling,” says Eames, settling his hand loosely around Arthur’s ankle, “get down here with me.”

“I thought you were too tired for sex.” 

“Sometimes people just cuddle in the sex club,” Eames tells him. 

“Oh, it’s that kind of sex club, huh?” says Arthur, and obediently falls onto the mattress with Eames. 

Eames wriggles to settle against him. “Excellent surprise,” he mumbles. “Thank you, darling.” He plants a kiss on Arthur’s chest, above where his heart is beating. 

“I just wanted to tell you…” says Arthur. “That I’m going to say yes.” 

“Yes to what, darling?” asks Eames, sounding sleepy. 

“When you ask me. I’m going to say yes.” Eames is very still against him. Arthur can tell he’s listening hard. “I just…wanted to give you some kind of gesture, because I know I’m putting you to a lot of trouble to ask me in the just-right way, and so I didn’t want you to feel like I’d pushed you out on a limb all by yourself, I just wanted you to know that I love you, too, and I’m going to say yes, and somehow I thought having a sex club designed for you seemed like the right way to get my point across.” It sounds ridiculous to him now that he’s said out loud. He should have planned this speech earlier so he could have realized how ridiculous it sounds. 

Eames is silent for a moment. Then he shifts to prop himself up on his elbow and looks down at Arthur. “I never for one second thought you were putting me to any trouble, or felt like I was out on a limb, but thank you. For the pre-yes. For the sex-club-design gift. For being you. For always being game for every mad scheme I concoct for our lives. Thank you.” Eames leans down and kisses him, a kiss with no destination, a kiss that is a simple declarative statement. 

Then Eames pulls back. “Do we get to keep this room? I want to reconstruct it in our house. I want to put it in the public rooms, and when we have parties people will say, ‘Is that your sex club?’ and we can say, ‘Sex club? Don’t be silly! We don’t have a sex club! Please watch out for the sex swing, though.’ Why isn’t there a sex swing?” 

“Take it up with the designers,” Arthur says indulgently. “But yes, everything here belongs to us. So we can definitely take it home with us and tell everyone that it is _not_ our sex club.” 

“If you think we’re not going to have sex on every surface in this room, you are sorely mistaken, darling,” remarks Eames. 

“Promises, promises,” says Arthur. 

Eames laughs and kisses him again and says, “But not tonight. Let’s go home.” 

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. “Let’s go home.”


	229. Chapter 229

In the morning there is one last breakfast with the parents, one last day of his mother sliding coffee to him, of Albert making him a fresh plate of eggs. Arthur is looking forward to the upcoming vacation but he is feeling a nostalgic melancholy over saying good-bye to everyone. 

“What time did you get in last night?” he asks, as he sips his coffee and devours his eggs. 

“Not late,” says Maggie airily. 

“It was a little late,” says Laura. 

“It was _very_ late,” corrects Albert. 

“We took Saito’s limo for a joy ride first,” says Maggie. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows. “You stole Saito’s limo?” 

“Just commandeered it,” says Maggie. 

Arthur looks at his mother. 

She says, “He didn’t mind.”

“Of course not,” agrees Maggie. “Laura said ‘pretty please’ and that was all it took.”

Arthur watches the tips of his mother’s ears turn red. 

“Ah,” says Eames as he breezes into the kitchen. “An ear blush. What’s this I’m missing? Must be a good topic of conversation. Good morning, darling.” He darts a kiss somewhere between Arthur’s cheekbone and ear and goes to frown at the kettle. 

“We’re discussing how late our parents dragged themselves in last night. We should have given them a curfew,” says Arthur. 

“Oh, now, it was our last night in America,” Maggie points out, grinning. 

Albert adds, “Plus, you two are the young pups. You should have been ashamed you were home sleeping in bed so early, like two old fuddy-duddies.” 

“Who says we were sleeping?” asks Eames.

Even though they were. 

Maggie says, “No more details. Arthur’s striptease last night on the show was bad enough.” 

Arthur chokes on his coffee. 

Maggie helpfully whacks him on the back. 

Eames shoots him an amused look. 

Albert says, “And you wonder about those sex club rumors,” and shakes his head like Arthur is tragically foolish to think he can ever outrun the sex club rumors. 

“Let’s talk about something else,” suggests Arthur. 

“It looks like a beautiful day for flying,” says Laura gamely. 

“Let’s talk about your new show,” Maggie says. “It sounds so exciting. Are you excited?” 

“Yes, actually,” says Arthur honestly. “I think it’s going to be fun.” 

“I think ‘fun’ is an understatement,” says Eames. 

“Good,” says Maggie, smiling at them, a very Eamesian beam. “That’s what I like to hear.” 

“Eamesie, will you have breakfast?” Albert asked from the stove. 

“I would love to, but we should probably leave for the airport in order to give me enough time to go the wrong way several times.” 

Arthur sighs. 

Maggie and Albert fetch their suitcases and get ready to leave amidst a profusion of enthusiastic hugs and kisses and promises. 

“Everyone needs to come and visit us. _Everyone_ , Laura,” Maggie insists, as she hugs Arthur’s mother. 

“Absolutely,” his mother agrees warmly, returning the hug. 

Arthur smiles as he watches the two of them and thinks of planning a wedding somewhere. Maybe in the Eameses’ back garden, to give everyone an excuse to converge on the village and give the Eameses the ability to show them all off. 

Maggie turns to him and hugs him and says, “Arthur, as ever, such a delight. Come and see us soon. With or without Eamesie, we don’t care.” 

Albert says, “Actually, we’d prefer without Eamesie, he always causes too much trouble.” Albert hugs Arthur as well. 

“I can’t even argue with that,” says Eames, and gives Arthur’s mother a hug and a kiss. “Safe driving. See you soon, yeah?”

“Yes,” Arthur’s mother agrees. “Have a good flight.” 

“We will!” says Maggie. 

“Be sure to call when you land,” says Arthur. 

“Definitely,” promises Albert. 

They step out the door, waving as they go. 

“Follow the GPS and don’t get lost,” Arthur says to Eames. 

“Darling, remind me, does red mean go and green mean stop?” 

“Leave now,” Arthur tells him, long-suffering. 

Eames grins and kisses his dimple and then waves at Arthur’s mother as he follows his parents out the door. 

“You’ll like having the house to yourselves again,” his mother remarks. 

“It was nice having everyone here,” Arthur says, because it’s true. 

“But you’re tired,” his mother says knowingly. “Take a nice long nap and let Eames coddle you in the Virgin Islands.” 

“Eames always coddles me,” Arthur says, because this is also embarrassingly true. 

“I had a wonderful time, Arthur,” his mother says. “I had such fun at the show and everyone you know—aside from Alec Hart—is so lovely. Thank you for having me.” 

“You don’t need to wait for an invitation, you know,” Arthur says. “You can show up anytime.” 

“You are an excellent son for saying that,” his mother smiles at him. “And I am an excellent mother for knowing that’s a bad idea.”

She’s probably right but he says anyway, “We really wouldn’t mind it every so often. Seriously. We’d love to see you more. Let us know if you ever want us to crash a New York weekend with Saito.” 

His mother blushes, which is lovely to see. 

He hugs her and says, “Have a safe drive.” 

She says, “Have a wonderful time on vacation.” 

Arthur intends to have the best fucking vacation of all time, he thinks.


	230. Chapter 230

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to flosculatory for suggesting the high school gossip part of this.

Eames arrives back to find Arthur sprawled on the couch in the living room under his fleece and feather boa blanket, watching a cooking show. The room has gone dark around him, and he didn’t bother to get up to turn on the light. 

Neither does Eames. He walks in and collapses heavily onto the couch with Arthur. 

Arthur grunts with his weight and adjusts a little bit. 

“What’s this?” Eames asks about the television show. 

“It’s an interesting thing some people do when they wish to feed themselves,” says Arthur. “It’s called cooking. I’m thinking we should try it.” 

“And I’m thinking we should hire other people to do all of the cooking for us.” 

“We’re hiring a lot of people to do a lot of things,” Arthur points out. 

“Because we are fucking lazy bastards,” Eames says. “I looked at your whiteboard in the kitchen as I came in—which, by the way, we are changing that out to the glass Scott suggested as soon as I can—and the entire thing is wiped clean and there are only two words written on it: _St. Thomas_.”

Arthur is well aware of this, because he’s the one who erased the whiteboard and wrote _St. Thomas_ on it. He hasn’t thought beyond St. Thomas, because he’s vowed not to. He’s going to take this time with Eames and enjoy the fuck out of it. 

“We are fucking lazy bastards who earned every second of our laziness,” Arthur says, and brushes his hand through Eames’s hair. 

Eames makes a sound similar to a purr (which, now Arthur understands why Eames finds that so hot when their positions are flipped) and snuggles a little harder into Arthur. “We did,” he says, sounding sleepy. “Every sodding second.” 

Eames’s sleepiness feels infectious. Arthur closes his eyes and just breathes with him for a little while. 

“Are we old fuddy-duddies?” he asks eventually. 

Eames grunts, then answers, “We’re bloody sexy fuddy-duddies, if we are. By the way, I got the scoop on your mum.” 

“My mom?” 

“And Saito.” 

“Eames,” sighs Arthur. 

“They totally kissed. My mum told me all about it.” 

“Okay. That’s excellent. Also, this isn’t high school, you know.” 

“Mum said he looks like a good kisser.” 

“Stop talking now,” commands Arthur, because he’s very happy for his mother but he doesn’t want to know _details_. 

Eames snickers but obeys the command. 

For a little while. 

Before he says, “Fuck, it’s quiet in here, isn’t it?” 

“We have the house all to ourselves again.” 

“I feel like I can’t even remember what we used to do when we had the house all to ourselves.” 

“We had a lot of sex in a lot of inappropriate places.” 

“There’s no such thing as an inappropriate place to have sex,” says Eames. 

“Yes, there is. I’m not wild about the kitchen counter, for instance.”

“Why not?” asks Eames. “It’s not like we ever use those surfaces for food preparation.” 

“You raise an excellent point, actually.” 

“I do that sometimes,” says Eames. 

“Sometimes,” Arthur agrees. “I was thinking. About the public rooms.” 

“And how we’re going to make one of them into an indoor chocolate forest and one of them into a sex club?” 

“Just an indoor forest, the forest can’t be chocolate because of the insect infestation probability.” 

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” 

“Dream bigger how?” 

“I’ll come up with a solution to the insect infestation probability.”

“How? By ridding the world of insects?”

“Maybe. Does the world need insects?”

“I think so, yes.” 

“That sounds like science,” says Eames dismissively. “Paul’s domain.” 

“What I was saying,” says Arthur patiently, trying to get them back on track. “About the public rooms.” 

“Oh, yes, right, sorry. What were you saying?” 

“I think maybe we could use some of the space to make a couple of little apartments. For when our parents come to visit. That way they wouldn’t feel like they were imposing, and we wouldn’t feel like we had to alter our entire lifestyle when they come to visit, and maybe they would feel like they could come to visit more often, you know? I mean, I kind of liked having them here. It was fun. Did you like having them here?” 

Eames is silent for a moment. Then he agrees, “It was fun. And we should have them here more often. The apartment idea is a good one.” Eames presses a kiss to Arthur’s chest, through the layers of the blanket and the shirt Arthur is wearing. “You’re such a genius. I’m so lucky to get to shag a genius all the time.”


	231. Chapter 231

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I have a major announcement. And that is that I'm pretty sure tomorrow night's chapter is going to be the last one for this fic. So...yes. I thought you should prepare yourselves, perhaps. 
> 
> And also remember that there's a sub-Reddit just for comment party peeps: https://www.reddit.com/r/HGTV_Verse/new/
> 
> And also remember that there's a chatroom also just for comment party peeps: https://inceptionfandom.campfirenow.com/dd008

For the first two days in the Virgin Islands, Eames calls a moratorium on sex. Arthur thinks he’s joking and thinks that’s ridiculous and think that he’s definitely going to change Eames’s mind on that one…and then Arthur falls into bed and sleeps for thirteen straight hours and thinks maybe Eames was right and he really needed some rest. 

Arthur rouses himself enough to leave the bed and lounge by their private swimming pool, where there’s a lovely double lounge chair with enough room for both of them in a shaded cabana. Eames keeps them stocked with reasonably healthy foods— _fruits_ and _vegetables_ ; Arthur is amazed—and with lots of bottles of water and Arthur dozes off and on on Eames’s very comfortable chest. 

Eventually he wakes from a nap to find Eames sleeping soundly next to him, even though it’s clearly mid-afternoon according to the sun. Arthur decides he’s itchy for something to do and he rolls out of bed and changes into the peacock Speedo and swims laps until Eames wakes up and joins him in the pool and starts splashing around messily. 

Arthur says, “What are you doing? You’re getting water everywhere. Stop flailing.” 

Eames says, “I’m flailing because you’re wearing a peacock Speedo.” 

“Yes. You got it for me as a gift,” Arthur reminds him. 

“You are bloody fucking hot in your peacock Speedo,” says Eames. 

“No, I’m not,” says Arthur, even as Eames hauls him up against him into a deep kiss. “Is the two-day moratorium on sex over?” he mumbles into Eames’s mouth. 

“Fuck yes,” says Eames, which could either be an oath or a primitive sentence. Arthur doesn’t really care. 

Even the sex, Arthur reflects later, is slow and lazy, like they don’t want to expend the energy that a proper fuck would take. They’re very good at mutual hand jobs, at waking each other up with slow-build blowjobs. 

Arthur likes it, likes everything about the pace of their lives here. He feels more relaxed, more comfortable, more secure than he has in ages. He and Eames seldom go into the room, seldom leave their poolside perches. The most Arthur seems to move is from sun to shade and back again, as the mood strikes him. He takes to foregoing the effort of contacts in favor of glasses, which Eames, naturally, violently supports. Eames, meanwhile, stops ordering them anything healthy and fills their plates with chocolates and their glasses with champagne. 

Sometimes Arthur thinks about how he thought Eames was planning a proposal here, but then Arthur falls back into Eames’s infectious unhurried relaxation and forgets about it. 

They have ridiculous conversations based around Eames’s foolish questions, rolling around in hysterical laughter over their own banter. “Would you rather have no fingernails or no toenails?” “If you could only hear one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?” “What do you think is the hardest building to make into a gingerbread house?” 

At night they sprawl outside and count the stars together. Eames tells stories about the constellations, because Eames is a good storyteller. Some of them might even be true but Arthur doesn’t know and doesn’t care. 

“Are you happy?” Eames murmurs against his temple one night. “You seem happy here.” 

“I’m very happy,” Arthur replies. “Don’t I seem happy?” He whistles “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” just to prove it to Eames. 

Eames chuckles. “You’ve seemed happy.” 

Arthur says, “There is nothing to worry about. Nothing for me to plan. Nothing to me to run point on. There’s just you and me and sun and sky and it’s lovely.” 

“We can just say here forever,” Eames offers.

“I’d get tired of it,” says Arthur.

“You’d at least miss Giacomo,” says Eames. 

“Exactly.” Arthur pauses, then shifts so he can see Eames. “In all seriousness, I’d miss everything. I love our life. I like our jobs. I like what we do. I’m excited for the new show.” 

“Good.” Eames smiles and kisses his nose. “I’d like to keep you like this, you know. What can I do to make that happen?” Eames rests a hand on Arthur’s hip, gently possessive, and strokes in a soothing circle.

Arthur turns into him, presses a kiss to his chest and breathes for a moment. “Be you,” he whispers. 

“I can do that,” says Eames. “I’m me, and I’m also yours.” 

“Ditto,” says Arthur. 

“Ditto?” says Eames. “That’s your great romantic proclamation to me? ‘Ditto’? Christ, wait until I tell the fanfic writers. You say such extraordinarily sappy things to me in fanfiction.” 

“What do I say to you in fanfiction?” asks Arthur indulgently. 

“That I changed your life.” 

“Uh-huh. Ditto.” 

Eames laughs. “That you can’t imagine what you’d do without me.” 

“Well, I’d prefer not to imagine, so I guess that’s true up to a point.” 

Eames says, “That you’ve grown to adore my taste in shirts.” 

“Ah, that’s what puts the ‘fiction’ in ‘fanfiction,’” says Arthur.


	232. Chapter 232

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's turned out to be either 232 or 233 chapters. My Word document is 283,185 words long, and 779 pages. And these numbers do nothing to capture how amazing a fic experience this has been for me. 
> 
> I don't even know how to thank all of you. You have all just been so incredibly lovely. I've never written a fic that had quite this comment party experience, and I can't believe how lucky I am to have had it, and I am always going to cherish everything about this. I cannot believe how long you have all been such delightful parts of my life, and I am so grateful to have cyber-met all of you through this fic. And not just because you're all fantastic people...
> 
> ...but also because you all loved Arthur and Eames as much as I do. And all of the other characters, too. Except for Alec, who you appropriately hated. But as a writer I'm happiest when my readers love my characters, and all of your delight and affection and enthusiasm for everyone in this fic was so inspiring. When I started this fic, I thought it was going to be so much...*less.* And instead you always had the best ideas, and I just had to incorporate so many of them. I tried to give credit when I did, and I hope that I did, but it's actually impossible to give full credit, because it was just EVERYTHING about the comment party. Such an amazingly collaborative experience and I think it made this a much better fic than it would have been otherwise. You made me dream bigger. Thank you. 
> 
> And because I forgot to credit as I went along, challenge credit goes to: scribblscrabbl, tryingtofindthegreatperhaps, and impextoo (small space); penguinandthewolf (secret room); carla156 (coffee shop); keeblermc and azriona (outdoor living room); anxiety-junkie, azriona, and sierranovembr (library); kimchicreativityandkrazyness and azriona (desk); and tea-n-brains (closets).
> 
> Normally when I finish a fic I'm kind of ready to be done. This fic has, I think, reached its natural end, but I'm very unusually emotional and fragile about it being over. I will miss the craziness of frantically writing a chapter every night, and of waking up to an insane inbox full of the most amazing comments and gifs and conversations from all of you. You kept me company and kept me writing through some tough times, and I will never be able to thank you enough. I won't know what to do without you as much as you won't know what to do without this fic! But no panic spirals for us. Let us just take some processing time together. And stop by the reddit and say hi and keep in touch: https://www.reddit.com/r/HGTV_Verse/new/
> 
> And plan for some kind of massive sequel reunion. Watch for your invitations in the mail. ::hugs:: all around
> 
> (And in the meantime also check out all the FANTASTIC related works linked at the end.)
> 
> (And I'll be in the chatroom tonight: https://inceptionfandom.campfirenow.com/dd008)

On their second-to-last night in the Virgin Islands, Eames says suddenly, “Do you want to go and see the house I’ve been working on here?” 

This is the first mention Eames has made of his Virgin Islands client. Arthur had honestly forgotten there was one. He sits up where he’d been reclining on a lounge chair in the setting sun, doing a book of maze puzzles. “Eames!” he exclaims. 

Eames lifts his eyebrows. “You sound alarmed.” 

“I forgot about your client!” 

“It’s okay. Paul has taken exquisite care. I’ve been monitoring from afar while you’ve been sleeping twenty hours a day.” 

“I haven’t been sleeping twenty hours a day,” grumbles Arthur. 

“Like a cat,” says Eames. 

“Do you want me to go see your project, or don’t you?” says Arthur.

Eames smiles. “I want you to see it. I’m proud of it.” 

Which, of course, means that Arthur wouldn’t miss it. 

“We’ll go out to dinner, maybe,” Eames suggests. 

Arthur doesn’t miss Eames’s effort at nonchalance. He inwardly muses and thinks of the proposal and outwardly says, “My, what a novel suggestion. Does this mean I should put clothes on?” 

“Sadly, yes. Unless you want to start that nudist trend finally—”

“Again: No,” says Arthur, and goes to get dressed. He wears the blue blazer he bought in New York City, and Eames wolf-whistles when he sees it and tries to pin Arthur against the wall and Arthur says, “I bought this so I could be seen in public in it,” and Eames says, “Well, that was bloody foolish on your part, darling,” and Arthur says, “Isn’t your client waiting for us?” and Eames sighs and says, “Yes, I guess.” 

The house turns out to have a gorgeous location up on one of the hillsides, and Arthur can imagine that it has spectacular views. From the front it isn’t much to look at, though. In fact, it looks a bit small, much smaller than Arthur had expected, smaller than Eames’s clients’ houses usually are. 

Eames says, confirming what Arthur suspected, “The views on the other side of this house are to die for. Wait until you see.” Then he takes Arthur’s hand and practically tumbles him through the elaborate wrought-iron gate that guards a courtyard brimming over with bougainvillea. Arthur likes it. It’s all sweet and unassuming and charming. 

Eames fishes out a key to open the front door, saying, “Hand-carved,” as he raps a knuckle against it, and it is a pretty door, with a swirling pattern reminiscent of the paisley Eames likes so much. 

The front door opens into one gigantic room that sweeps to a huge expanse of glass that looks out at the bay, and the room would be stunning on its own, with that view, and with the way it moves effortlessly from kitchen to dining to living, its blends of formal and informal. But what stops Arthur in his tracks is how the room is decorated. Arthur is used to being floored by Eames’s designs but this is…not Eames’s design. This is every design Arthur said he liked during _Next Big Thing_. There are fleece and feather boa couches, there’s a cushion pit for reading, there’s an entire plant wall, there are bits of stained glass for the light to shine through, there’s even an alcove done in Sunny’s dramatic gift-wrap motif. And Arthur is pretty sure that Eames has positioned mirrors around the main chandelier in such a way as to create the Versailles endless mirror effect. 

Arthur stops with one foot through the door and stares and then says on a desperate breath, “Eames.” 

“Do you like it?” Eames asks.

Arthur doesn’t even know what to say. Arthur just stares. 

Eames smiles and says, “Come in and properly see it,” and tugs Arthur in. “I mean, this room’s a showstopper but you should see the bathroom in this place. And let’s not even get started on the closets. One of them has a gorgeous sculpture of a coatrack that I have it on good authority you’re going to love.” Eames winks. 

“Eames, what is…” Arthur digs his heels in a little bit on the floor—travertine? Or limestone, possibly—and stops Eames’s progress. “Is your client a big _Next Big Thing_ fan?”

“More of a fan of these particular designs,” says Eames. 

“But…” Arthur looks around them, then back at Eames. “These are all my favorites, too.” 

“Yes,” says Eames, still smiling, and then he steps closer to Arthur. “That’s because you’re the client, darling.” 

“I’m the client?” Arthur says dumbly. 

“This is your house.” 

Arthur thinks. “I…don’t remember buying this house.” 

Eames laughs. “You didn’t. I bought it for you, ages ago. I was going to tell you. Actually, I was going to talk it through with you before I bought it, whether we should splurge on a holiday cottage for the two of us, somewhere for us to get away and not worry, not run point, just sleep and laugh and fuck and all of the cameras would be an ocean away. Then this place came on the market and I hadn’t discussed it with you yet but I really wanted this place, I loved it at first sight, it just needed tons of work, and I needed to move fast and I thought maybe I’d surprise you with it. I really wanted to surprise you. Are you angry?” 

“Why would I be angry?” Arthur asks in astonishment. 

“I don’t know. I just...You like it here. You’re really happy here. We could be happy here all the time. Here. In this house.” 

“In this house that you bought for me and you designed for me and, _Eames_ , the only thing I’m angry about is that you should have bought it and designed it for _us_.” Arthur launches himself on top of Eames, forcing him to take his full weight but Eames does it easily. 

“Well, I rather thought that was understood,” Eames manages under the onslaught of Arthur’s kisses.

“I love you,” Arthur says, and stops kissing him to just hug him, face pressed against his neck. “I really, really love you.” 

“You,” Eames says against him in a whoosh of air. “Darling, you, you, you.” 

There is something about Eames’s tone. Arthur’s heart stops beating. Arthur holds tight to Eames in this house Eames has designed for him and concentrates on breathing. 

Eames pulls back, cups his hands around Arthur’s cheeks, brushes his hands through Arthur’s waving hair. “The thing about you,” Eames says, “is I’m not just in love with you. I’m in love with everything about you. I’m in love with the way you make me feel, like I could conquer the world but you wouldn’t give a fuck either way, as long as I was happy, like our lives are endless possibility, anything we want. I’m in love with how you are on sleepy Sunday mornings, when your hair is a mess and you curl into me, and I’m in love with how you are on workday mornings, when you roll out of bed and into the shower on a schedule. I’m in love with you when we’re working together and in love with you when we’re apart but I have your texts on my phone to look forward to. I’m in love with how you are in the evenings, whether we banter over dinner or sit in the same room without saying a word. I’m in love with you when you’re serious and I’m in love with you when you’re silly and I’m in love with how frequently you’re both. And I’m in love with the way you love me, the way you love _us_ , your total dedication to making this work, the way I always know I have you to worry about me, to have my back, to encourage me in all of my endeavors and catch me when I fail at defying laws of physics. I have you, and that’s let me be more me, and I have never found an adequate way to thank you for that. I want to spend the rest of our lives trying. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want you to spend the rest of yours with me, and I want us to be who we are, as a team, for all of it, for every mad thing that lurks around the corner. There is no one I want to slay dragons with more than you, no one I want to laugh with more than you, no one I want to crawl to at the end of bad days more than you.” Eames smiles, a wide, fond smile. “No one I want to dream bigger with more than you.” 

They are old words between them, emotionally laden words, words that Arthur initially used on a very different night in circumstances that were both very different and somehow very similar to these, standing on the cusp of an enormous and wondrous beginning again, and he can’t handle them being said back to him in this context. “Eames,” says Arthur, to say, _stop, it’s too much_ because he meant to behave with dignity but he’s fearful that he’s just a weepy, blubbering mess at the moment. 

“Let me say it, darling,” Eames says, his eyes very solemn as they gaze at him. “Let me say it so you know, so you never doubt it. I don’t want to promise you the world—I could never deliver—but I promise you our own little corner of it, gorgeous and happy and I will do ridiculous things and you will laugh and roll your eyes and sigh. I promise to help give you a life of extravagant joy and happiness and laughter, a life we build together, kiss by kiss. I promise you my eternal devotion, and to shower you with things of beauty, and to cherish a constant gratitude that you exist on this planet and have chosen to share a sliver of it with me. I promise to always remind you to dream bigger, and I promise to always rely on you to be running point if my dreaming gets a bit too big. And I promise you that I will never allow you to forget that enormous fucking messes can be beautiful things sometimes, and there’s always a chance to get it right, and being everything all at once is the best thing ever, and even a perfect move-in ready home can benefit from a little fixing-up.” 

Arthur chokes out a laugh, shocked and amazed. “How?” he manages. “How did you remember all of that?” 

“The same way you knew immediately what I was referencing. Because it was the best night of my life that you showed up and said yes to me. Say yes to me again. I promise you everything, here, now, just the two of us in this room. Let me promise it in front of the whole world, too.” Then Eames slides easily to one knee, clasping Arthur’s hand, and Arthur’s sure this would all present a very pretty tableau—Eames in this gorgeous room with the sun setting over the ocean beyond him—if Arthur had eyes for anything other than Eames. Eames with a smile on his lips and his eyes light with love. Eames the way he always looks when he looks at Arthur. “Banter with me, my darling kitten, for the rest of our lives. Will you marry me?” 

Arthur nods, because he doesn’t think he can get anything else out, which is a shame because he had a whole _thing_ planned for this. 

Eames smiles more and fishes into his pocket and holds out a small velvet box that he offers to Arthur. 

Arthur finds he can speak. “How can you have gotten me something else? You just bought me a fucking _house_.” But he takes the box and opens it on a set of cufflinks, inscribed with their initials swirled together. 

“That’s for you to torture me with at inopportune moments. Or opportune moments. Depends on your perspective.” 

“I look forward to it,” Arthur says, and means every syllable of it. He closes the box and kneels down in front of Eames and places the box carefully on the floor next to him and frames Eames’s face with his hands. “I so look forward to it. I look forward to _everything_. I look forward to every crazy remodel in our future, to every insane adventure you can dream up. Yes,” he says solemnly, taking a deep breath to gather himself. “My answer is yes. It was yes that night and it’s yes now and it will always be yes, whenever you ask me, for the rest of our lives. Just…yes.” 

Eames surges forward and kisses the tears on Arthur’s cheek and he’s murmuring something but Arthur can’t even understand what it is through his haze of thrilled happiness. Instead Arthur just leans forward and into Eames, hugging him closely. 

“Eames,” he says, just as he planned, “do you know what happens to the man who suddenly gets everything he ever wanted?” 

Eames stills. Then he demands, “Oh, my God, are you quoting Willy Wonka at me?” 

Arthur moves backwards enough so he can kiss Eames and say, “He lives happily ever after.” 

 

 

_The end. (or the beginning)_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Next Big Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3535913) by [SoupSoupSoup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoupSoupSoup/pseuds/SoupSoupSoup)
  * [NBT promotional posters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571739) by [true90schild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/true90schild/pseuds/true90schild)
  * [Arthur's on the Cover of GQ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3599616) by [Burning_Up_A_Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Up_A_Sun/pseuds/Burning_Up_A_Sun)
  * [The age of twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658824) by [Ischa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa)
  * [He's the #NextBigThing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3683031) by [Burning_Up_A_Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Up_A_Sun/pseuds/Burning_Up_A_Sun)
  * [Having Eames on Eames](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701685) by [mykmyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mykmyk/pseuds/mykmyk)
  * [In Which Arthur Appears as a Guest on the Colbert Report](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703269) by [dracoxlovesxharry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoxlovesxharry/pseuds/dracoxlovesxharry)
  * [Next Big Thing: Behind the Camera](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3682356) by [Mary_Jane221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B)
  * [Viewing Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721438) by [fulldaysdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulldaysdrive/pseuds/fulldaysdrive)
  * [Untitled drabble prompted by a tissue video (or tissue video killed this authoress)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3744823) by [ladyprydian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyprydian/pseuds/ladyprydian)
  * [Sonnet: #armes4armes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764173) by [alltoseek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek)
  * [Terrible Room Designs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790798) by [alltoseek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek)
  * [Cover Graphic for Next Big Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3859660) by [alltoseek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek)
  * [A Love Story, Only Partly About Coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3873028) by [entrecomillas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entrecomillas/pseuds/entrecomillas), [Mary_Jane221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B)
  * [Fedora point of view drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3825796) by [Mary_Jane221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B)
  * [Tender as Dew, Impetuous as Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3934483) by [GretaOto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaOto/pseuds/GretaOto)
  * [Arthur's](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989590) by [alltoseek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek)
  * [Sometimes Dreams Require A Little Construction First](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4004035) by [Mary_Jane221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B)
  * [dragons & feathers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049803) by [flosculatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculatory/pseuds/flosculatory)
  * [Cupid, Take Two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3936739) by [Zoolooney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoolooney/pseuds/Zoolooney)
  * [When September Ends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068751) by [RighteousHate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RighteousHate/pseuds/RighteousHate)
  * [Don't Judge a Fae by its Color](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355960) by [cosmogyral_mad_woman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral_mad_woman/pseuds/cosmogyral_mad_woman)
  * [Next Big Thing Fan Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4385561) by [deadgloves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadgloves/pseuds/deadgloves)
  * [Eames and Daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4979452) by [Mary_Jane221B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_Jane221B/pseuds/Mary_Jane221B)
  * [The First Rule of the Secret Sex Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7119319) by [QueenThayet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet)
  * [The Second Rule of the Secret Sex Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578259) by [QueenThayet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet)
  * [The Inception of the Secret Sex Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7582444) by [QueenThayet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet)
  * [The Third Rule of the Secret Sex Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7670929) by [QueenThayet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet)
  * [America's Poet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11415954) by [QueenThayet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenThayet/pseuds/QueenThayet)
  * [Willy Wonka Eames and Requisite Climbing Shot Arthur](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13548609) by [swtalmnd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swtalmnd/pseuds/swtalmnd)
  * [The Case of the Graphic T-Shirt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552737) by [CoffeeWithConsequences](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/pseuds/CoffeeWithConsequences)




End file.
